There be dragons

Vegetation clearing for new agricultural land continues to cause environmental degradation, biodiversity loss and increased carbon emissions. But there are also large swathes of land no longer used for agriculture with potential to be remediated.

This NAIDOC Week we celebrate the flow and connectedness of People and Country, highlighting the relationship Bush Heritage holds with the Badimia Traditional Owners of the Midwest-Gascoyne region in Western Australia.

Across a 1500km arc from the Gibson Desert to Shark Bay, researcher Richard McLellan is uncovering the ecological and cultural value of sandalwood.

I see all sorts of wildlife every day at Charles Darwin Reserve, but it is only once a year that Bush Heritage partakes in the small animal trapping on the Reserve. And I must say it is definitely one of my favourite times of year. A weeklong adventure of early mornings, peering down into dark traps never knowing what creatures might be hiding inside – and the utter joy of seeing a native animal staring back at you. A joy only surpassed by releasing the animal unharmed back into the wild.

Before I started as Reserve Manager at Charles Darwin Reserve, I was an avid volunteer for Bush Heritage – and have been monitoring the Malleefowl mounds here on Badimia Country for the past five years. In 2016, myself and a team of other keen volunteers went bush on one of the annual mound monitoring surveys and visited hundreds of potential Malleefowl mound locations that needed to be ‘ground-truthed’ after LIDAR analysis. Every year since, I have returned to Charles Darwin Reserve to monitor the Malleefowl mounds we identified.

Water is a vital and scarce resource in the midwest rangelands of WA, and here at Charles Darwin Reserve we are constantly looking for ways to improve our rainwater capture. So earlier this Winter a small but skilled group of volunteers dug deep to harvest rainwater – an excellent way to save not only water but also money and the environment.

With its vibrant purple flowers, Paterson’s Curse is often mistaken for a native wildflower but is in fact one of the most conspicuous weeds in paddocks and roadsides throughout Australia. Supposedly named after the Paterson family of Cumberoona, New South Wales - who planted it in their garden in the 1880s – the weed is now highly competitive in disturbed land, competing with agricultural crops and pastures, and unique and fragile native species. It was introduced to Australia from Europe.

Children learn a lot about the world through imaginative play and what better place to imagine than at Charles Darwin Reserve. The first two weeks of July are school holidays here in WA and with COVID restrictions easing – our families have been able to visit for the first time. It's always great to see family, but to be able to share the magic of Charles Darwin Reserve with not only our siblings, but also their children, is a unique and special experience.

Since my partner Jessica and I moved out to Charles Darwin Reserve from Geraldton six months ago, we've missed a few things from the city, but one thing we have certainly missed ‘big time’ is pizza. Due to the reserve’s remote location, delivery is out of the question – the nearest pizza delivery shop is about 300km away. So there appeared to be only one solution ... build our own pizza oven!

Whilst our volunteers aren't able to get out onto Reserve, we've asked them to recount some of their previous adventures. Long term Western Australian volunteer Bob Ruscoe recounts an incident whilst Caretaking on Charles Darwin Reserve.

And once the rain stopped and the thunder had passed, a new noise entered the landscape — a distinctive long, low trill that could be heard from some distance away. With our head-torches on, we ventured outside to the house dam, which at this stage was filling up with not just water, but also hundreds of protruding eyes and webbed feet — frogs!

Earlier this year I joined eight other volunteers to conduct an annual survey of Malleefowl activity on the vast Charles Darwin Reserve.

Charles Darwin Reserve has once again celebrated its annual spring weeding session. A group of enthusiastic weeders donned their armor and attacked the inevitable, but diminishing crops of Patterson’s Curse, Double Gees and Brassicas.

Ecologist Georgina Gould-Hardwick writes about her time spent submersing herself into Santalaceae science at our Eurardy and Charles Darwin Reserves.

Bush Heritage staff and Badimia Bandi Barna Aboriginal Corporation directors gathered together in the shearing shed to discuss current and planned activities on Charles Darwin Reserve, Badimia aspirations and cultural heritage site management on the reserve.

"When I look at her, I often find myself thinking about the things this old tree must have seen. For hundreds of years, it has been providing life-giving habitat, food and shade for countless species.”

Fifteen years ago, two men sat on a log and talked long into the night. Their conversation would shape the future of the land upon which they rested.

One thing I can say about volunteering with Bush Heritage Australia is that it's never boring. And I've just had the most action-packed week that I've had for a long time, helping-out with this year's fauna monitoring surveys on Charles Darwin Reserve in midwest Australia.

Boots? Check. Gloves? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Wide-brimmed hat? Check. Shin and ankle gaiters? Check. Thorn-proof, long-sleeved shirt and trousers? Hmm... is there any such thing? As it turns out, the answer to that question is 'No' - as this year's hardy bunch of staff and volunteers discovered when we were out conducting the annual Malleefowl mound monitoring surveys on Charles Darwin Reserve.

There were certainly a lot of highlights at this year's Blues for the Bush music festival at Charles Darwin Reserve, but for me, and many other festival-goers, easily one of the stand-out, most-popular events on offer were the ecotours around the reserve.

Move over Hollywood! 'Cos while Tinseltown may be famous for having the Blues Brothers, here at Charles Darwin Reserve, we've got something bigger and better: an entire Blues Family.

This one was produced by an emu and is full of Sandalwood seeds. The species was harvested extensively but is now regenerating.

Precisely a week after my husband Will, our nine-month-old son Hamish, and I had moved from Sydney to Charles Darwin Reserve in remote Western Australia, I sat crying in our new house.

On Charles Darwin and Eurardy reserves in Western Australia, the innovative use of a remote sensing technology is marking the start of a new era in Malleefowl monitoring.

The beginning of the 2018 summer on Charles Darwin Reserve (CDR) saw an unprecedented increase in snake sightings around the homestead and visitor's quarters. In total there were six sightings over a period of two weeks. The most exciting for me personally was when I almost stepped on a Dugite (Pseudonaja affinis) only metres from our back door.

This experience made my week! We had rangers Vaughan Lane and Lindsey Callow, both Badimaya men from the Midwest Aboriginal Ranger Program who are working in partnership with the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council and Western Mulga, out at Charles Darwin Reserve in Western Australia recently to clear out a rock hole. What happened next was just extraordinary.

William Hansen is the new Charles Darwin Reserve Manager. Here he reflects on his first few months with Bush Heritage and family life on the reserve. "During my time with Bush Heritage the organisation has proven to be all I had hoped for and more. Considering the rigorous, science-based management that I have now seen first-hand, it's not hard to understand where their outstanding record for conservation comes from".

Brian Martin and Brian Crute are valued Bush Heritage volunteers who help with the seasonal sand pad monitoring on Charles Darwin Reserve in Western Australia. Here Brian Martin provides an account of this autumn's sand pad monitoring.

As part of a collaborative project we used the latest technology – LiDAR – to map new Malleefowl mounds in the region and in Spring we went and visited hundreds of these potential mound locations.

'The Brians' (aka Bush Heritage volunteers Brian Crute and Brian Martin) conducted the spring sandpad monitoring at Charles Darwin Reserve earlier this month. Here's Brian Martin's account of their findings.

Delights of the beautiful Charles Darwin Reserve were shared with over 1,400 people on the weekend at Blues for the Bush 2016. This fantastic event brought together people from around WA and further afield to learn about our conservation effort in the rangelands and to be inspired by nature, amazing art, music, food and creativity.

Dr Nic Dunlop from the Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA) has been running a citizen science program on Charles Darwin Reserve for the past 10 years. Here Nic discusses the science program and how Charles Darwin Reserve has become a meeting place for the scientific community.

Mick and Kerry Moylan have been volunteering for Bush Heritage Australia for the past 5 years. Based in Victoria they regularly volunteer on different reserves around the country. In the past couple of years they've worked on reserves in New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia. The following article was written by Mick after he and Kerry spent a week at Charles Darwin Reserve in Western Australia helping Reserve Manager, Fiona Stewart.

Under the guidance of local Aboriginal leader Ashley Bell from Ninghan Station, young people from rural towns in Midwest Western Australia have been learning about the cultural heritage and conservation values of the area on our Charles Darwin Reserve.