Connecting the Community to Protect Waterways

OzGREEN is an environmental organisation on a mission to create sustainable communities in regional NSW.

In 2023/24 OzGREEN received a grant of $1,250 from Bellingen Shire Council’s Environment Levy Community Fund for a project to connect the community in protecting the Shire’s waterways.

The project involved creating a series of macroinvertebrate (waterbug) resources specifically designed to educate and engage young people aged eight to eighteen. Understanding waterbugs is important as waterbug diversity and populations provide an indication of river health. Each waterbug has a certain sensitivity to pollution or water quality changes so the type and number of bugs found in a waterway gives an indication of how healthy the waterway is. The waterbug resources created under this project are freely available on the OzGREEN website and were used in a range of activities throughout the year.

Image courtesy of OzGREEN.

The grant also assisted in purchasing equipment, such as waders and waterbug sampling nets, for the delivery of a series of youth-focussed macroinvertebrate events. These events included:

• A macroinvertebrate monitoring workshop at the Bellingen Growers Market during National Science Week.
• A guided 13km kayak tour for young people in Bellingen where participants were taught macroinvertebrate sampling techniques and got to uncover the world of waterbugs.
• Four events for Macro Muster 5 – a school’s session, a mentor’s session, a community session and a community dinner. Here community members, including students, worked together to complete a full count of the waterbugs at 6 sites across the Bellinger and Kalang catchments. This macroinvertebrate monitoring citizen science event is the largest of its kind in Australia and gathers data to support the recovery of the critically endangered Bellinger River Snapping turtle.
• An interschool river fun day which involved hands-on activities, immersion in beautiful landscapes, wisdom-filled stories and unique games.
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Images courtesy of OzGREEN.

• River Youth Fest. This interactive event engaged young people through local music, activity stalls, including waterbugs, free food and planting over 300 trees on the riverbank.
• Macro Muster 6 High Schools Day. This involved the delivery of an Interschool River Fun Day at Lavendars Bridge for year 9 students from Bellingen and Dorrigo High School.
• Mulch & Mashups. For this event young people came back to nurture the trees they planted at the earlier event.

Images courtesy of OzGREEN.

The grant was also used to launch a new Bellingen Riverwatch data page. This is a comprehensive portal that communicates the data collected by Bellingen Riverwatch volunteers over a 7-year period at 25 sites across the Bellinger and Kalang catchments.

Visit the OzGREEN website to learn about their current projects and how to get involved.