Central West Environment Council
Orange Botanic Gardens
Mount Canobolas, near Orange, in the snow
A field trip during a CW conference organised by CWEC
Orange Botanic Gardens
REGIONAL CONFERENCE ! Saturday 13th June by Zoom. This is being run by the Nature Conservation Council and co-hosted by CWEC.
Some great speakers are lined up, with the main theme for the day being water (mid)management and some workshops on climate, media training, story telling, etc. Tickets are $11.
The program can be found here
More information on https://www.facebook.com/events/247445336685271
Coming Events
The next CWEC meeting will be on Sunday, July 5th courtesy of Mel's Zoom.
Past Events
CWEC's Community Forum on Biodiversity July 8th 2018 .
The aim of the forum was twofold:
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to raise awareness of the problems of land-clearing and deforestation due to recent changes to native vegetation and threatened species legislation and consider options for taking action to minimise the impacts and/or have the laws changed.
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to alert people to the new draft plan of management for the Mount Canobolas State Conservation Area with the inclusion of an investigation into a very large (68 km) mountain bike track and associated infrastructure within the park (and additional areas adjacent).
Speakers on the first topic included Jemilah Hallinan (EDO) who ably took us through the tortuous new legislation and clearing approval processes; and Shirley Hall (NCC) who gave us a very passionate talk and workshop on potential strategies that community groups can adopt to potentially redress the situation. I have requested that Shirley forward me more information on the latter respect.
In the afternoon, we were addressed by Dr. Col Bower (Ecological Consultant) and James Williams (Wiradjuri Elder) on the natural and cultural/spiritual values of Mt. Canobolas respectively, and by Roger Lembitt (Ecological Consultant/NPA) on the environmental impacts of mountain bike tracks in other natural areas. All the speakers helped with the workshops and discussions as well.
I gauged the feeling of the room in respect of the bike track and got a resounding ‘no’ to the development, although a few people thought a compromise might be in order.
We had 44 in attendance (37 all day, plus 2 morning only and 5 afternoon only). That exceeded our expectations (25-35). We had some publicity in the local radio and newspapers, and had a few members of the public, but most attendees belonged to local environment groups that are members of CWEC [including representatives from Dubbo (2), Bathurst (3) and Mudgee (3) other districts (2)] or via word of mouth from these members.
The forum was hosted by the Central West Environment Council and donations at the door covered the expenses. All talks will be sent to the registrants this week, along with more information on the NCC land-clearing campaign.
An article on the forum appeared in the Central Western Daily on Monday:
Cilla Kinross
Western Representative, Executive NCC
Chair, Central West Environment Council
10th July 2018
