As the world becomes increasingly aware of the erosion of its natural resources, conservation land management takes on new and vital importance. You don’t have to look far along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in NSW to see just how local Indigenous groups are looking after their land.
In the area covered by the Murrumbidgee Catchment Management Authority (CMA), groups of Indigenous people ranging from school leavers to mature-age students are tending local river habitats in seven NSW towns: Queanbeyan, Yass, Tumut, Wagga Wagga, Leeton, Darlington Point and Narrandera. You might see them putting up fences, building nesting boxes or working on ways to control stock access to land. All this is being done thanks to a partnership between TAFE NSW – Riverina Institute and the Murrumbidgee CMA.
Q: |
Looking for skills to conserve precious resources? |
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A: |
Practical training from TAFE NSW can help you protect the environment. |
Geoff Simpson, Project Manager, CMA, believes the training provided by the Institute, and funded by the CMA and local councils, will have long-lasting effects on the environment and the trainees involved.
Training by the Institute’s Primary Industry Centre began in 2007 with one group in Wagga, where trainees studied for a Certificate II in Conservation Land Management; they then did the Certificate III and in 2009 they are continuing their training in Certificate IV in Horticulture.
Doug Elliott, one of the Institute’s trainers, believes the practical nature of the training (which accounts for more than 90 per cent of the program) provides trainees with essential skills.
‘Few of the trainees come to the program from a background within conservation. But they do come together with a common goal: to connect Indigenous people back to the environment, within their country, and it’s working really well,’ said Mr Elliott.
‘Some of the trainees say to me, ‘This is reconnecting me with my country and my culture, I’m learning more about it’, so it’s not just a job for the sake of having a job,’ Mr Simpson said. ‘All these trainees were long-term unemployed but at the completion of this training they will be skilled and job-ready.’
