Take me to the River
Join social ecologist and river restoration expert Dr. Siwan Lovett in conversations about the ideas, issues and opportunities that relate to our connections with nature and each other. This podcast offers open, honest and practical insights for us to reflect on in our daily lives.
Take me to the River
Reviving Rivers: water bugs, water quality, platypus and natives with Jed Pearson
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Ever wondered what a platypus eats, how to remember native plant names, or what it takes to bring a river back to life? Today, ARRC Director Dr. Siwan Lovett sits down with Jed Pearson from the Rivers of Carbon team to answer some of these questions.
Jed has journeyed from Armidale to the ACT and his dedication to conservation through Waterwatch and Rivers of Carbon has only grown as he has learned on and cared for Country. We dive deep into the importance of riparian zones and the various vegetation layers that contribute to a thriving ecosystem, tackling erosion strategies and a case study on the Gudgenby River in the ACT. Jed explains the challenges of planting vegetation for erosion control and the importance of understanding local flora. We also explore plant identification techniques that, despite sometimes frustrating botanical names, help ensure high survival rates for the vegetation planted. This chapter serves as a valuable guide for those looking to mitigate erosion with site-specific approaches and expert consultation.
Lastly, we journey into the fascinating world of macroinvertebrates and their critical role in waterway health. Through the Rivers of Carbon project and Waterwatch program, we underscore the importance of accessible information and citizen science in monitoring water quality. Jed shares how these tiny creatures act as keystone species and indicators, vital to the diets of platypuses and overall ecosystem health. Jed also shares some very amusing ways to remember tricky species names!
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Take Me to the River is an Australian River Restoration Centre podcast production, hosted by Dr. Siwan Lovett and produced by Chris Walsh and Jimmy Hooper, with support from the rest of the ARRC Team. ✨
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We acknowledge and honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the country on which we work, learn, and live. We respect and learn from Elders past, present and emerging, valuing their knowledge, insights and connections to the waterways we love and care for. 🖤💛...
You look at the historic effort it took to put it into the position it is now. I read a statistic the other day that they estimate that a billion trees were cut down before 1900. And if you think of the effort it took with axe and saw to cut down a billion trees, well you know, you can see that it's probably going to take the same amount of effort to put them back. We would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the rivers in which we work and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and any Indigenous people listening. We would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the rivers in which we work and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and any Indigenous people listening today.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to Take Me to the River, sharing stories and inspiring hope with extraordinary people who care for our rivers. I'm your host, Dr Shu-Anne Lovett. Today I'm talking to one of my favourite people, Jed Pearson. Jed's a superstar member of our Rivers of Carbon team, the on-ground component of the Australian River Restoration Centre.
Speaker 2:Jed's a conservationist with a background in agriculture and project management. He grew up in Armidale, as did I, and he brings his love for rural Australia, our wonderful landscapes and passion for rivers to all that he does in projects currently around the ACT and southern New South Wales. He also works with Waterwatch, an organisation that engages the community in the environment through monitoring and caring for our catchments, conducting regular water surveys with volunteers and bringing education to local communities. Now, Jed's also one of the most knowledgeable and passionate people I know when it comes to native plants and water bugs. A walk with Jed on Country will leave you with surprising and plentiful knowledge about local flora and fauna, with a new appreciation for the complexity and beauty of our natural world. Jed, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Joanne. What an introduction.
Speaker 2:Pretty good, isn't it? Yeah, did you know that? That was who you are.
Speaker 1:No, no, thanks for that. Good to be here.
Speaker 2:Great. So, jed, can you tell me how you came to work with us at Rivers of Carbon?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure, I'm from Armidale in New South Wales, like yourself, and I've moved to the ACT about six years ago. I started working for Waterwatch in the NRM industry in 2021, and I started working for the Australian River Restoration Centre through Laurie Gould. So I met her through a project I was working on for Molonglo Conservation Group here in Canberra, a woodland birds restoration, habitat restoration project. And then, yeah, laurie had an opening in the Australian River Restoration Centre and asked me if I'd like to jump on board, which I snaffled up the opportunity as quick as I could.
Speaker 2:So do you have an expertise in woodland birds, or is it more the habitat that birds need? That was more the habitat that birds need.
Speaker 1:That was more the habitat. So woodland birds, yeah, I don't really have much knowledge in them themselves, but I do have some knowledge in the plants and the flora that they require as habitat. So, yeah, got lucky there as well. I managed to get involved in the Woodland Birds Project.
Speaker 2:And you always learn more on these projects, don't you? Oh, absolutely, because you learn more about what the birds need and which birds they are.
Speaker 1:You have to, you have to learn, you have to adapt and you know you have to take each project by each project. So yeah, it's always a good opportunity to jump on them when you can.
Speaker 2:So, when it comes to this word habitat, what is it that you're sort of trying to explain to them that a habitat is or needs to have within it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the word habitat gets put into a little box and it usually gets defined by people as only being a hiding place or a refuge for animals, when it's a lot more than that it's their food source and their water source as well. So I think we need to broaden how we imagine the word habitat being to being larger than what we currently put it, as I suppose you could define habitat as not just being your house, but a habitat for a human would be also the grocery store and the water supply as well. So it's a broader defined term across the whole landscape, not just under a rock or under a log or in a hollow.
Speaker 2:So let's talk a little bit about rivers, because that's how you've come to be working in rivers of carbon. When you're driving through the landscape and you might have someone along with you, or a landholder, for instance, how do you describe what a healthy river is and how do you then let someone know that maybe the river on their property, or the river or the creek or wetland that's near them, actually needs a bit of help?
Speaker 1:There's a few different ways. I mean, the first and foremost way to check river condition is biodiversity. If you have a lot of biodiversity in any ecosystem, you know that ecosystem is healthy. So you know, driving along the river with a landholder, first thing I'd look for is look at the riparian condition, look at what plants are growing. Colleges talk about habitat being in sort of three defined layers. So you have canopy, mid-story and ground cover and you want to have that sort of set up in any environment, including an aquatic environment as well.
Speaker 1:In-stream vegetation is also a big one in aquatic environments. And then you're also looking for other issues like erosion and things like that. Obviously, that's going to indicate a pretty poor system. So there are other ways you can obviously check. Just see if you really didn't have the condition. We can do sampling, water quality sampling and then we can look at the smaller creatures that live in there, like your macro vertebrates, water bugs and things like that. So yeah, that's what you're really looking for. I'd say biodiversity in an aquatic system is a really good indicator that that's in pretty good, healthy shape.
Speaker 2:And so the word biodiversity. I think people often tend to think of it as just sort of birds and fish, but it's actually a biodiverse system, is one that has a diversity of plants and animals and small organisms. It includes the soil, like it's huge in its thinking really, and I was interested just to ask you a little more about those three defined layers, because I know when I drive around I often see some canopy, but I don't tend to necessarily see what you described as the mid layer and the lower layer. Why are they so important? So that's, I'm assuming that's ground cover, and then sort of shrubs like tea tree.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah. So your mid-story layer we define it as anything like a shrub between one and five metres, and then your ground cover layer are those forby and grassy plants that sit under that metre, that metre high level. So especially mid-story, in this area it's really lacking in the broader landscape. We as humans, we can't stand it. We like really tall trees and we like really short ground cover like manicured parks. Our stock can't eat mid-story and we can't see our stock through it, so we tend to rip it out pretty quick.
Speaker 1:That mid-story layer is actually a major habitat source for woodland birds, especially small woodland birds. They need that spiky, dense, shrubby layer to shelter from big pedigree birds like your ravens and your kookaburras and your miners and things like that. So it's really important we keep these plants in the landscape. Your ground cover, on the other hand, it's extremely important. Not only does it provide habitat, but it's also covering the soil and it's stopping any of that bare ground from appearing, which can then lead to erosion issues. So yeah, your ground cover layer, you get a lot of bang from your buck out of promoting plant growth there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2:Last week I was fortunate enough to be on the Flora Peninsula in South Australia and we were driving through agricultural landscapes there and there were some lovely old trees but there was so much burning going on of wood like it was really making it neat and tidy.
Speaker 2:So there was no mid-story layer and that was in sharp contrast to the weekend before I left where I was up at G-High campground in the Kosciuszko National layer, and that was in sharp contrast to the weekend before I left where I was up at G-High Campground in the Kosciuszko National Park and it has a lot of that spiky, quite unpleasant bush to walk past really. But I was camping right next to it and in the morning it was just all these little birds kept popping out. So we had about 20 birds, those gorgeous little fairy wrens and willy wagtails, and then a kookaburra appeared in a tree, gone in an instant like disappeared. So I have come to appreciate that mid-story layer a lot more. But I do know that for some people it's quite a challenge because it does get us away from the idea that good management is neat and tidy. How do you explain that to your landholders who might be feeling a bit worried about putting in what might be considered scrubby vegetation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I usually tell my landholders to pick the areas. So, areas of high production value, you know, keep them as areas of high production value, areas that have good conservation value, keep them as areas of good conservation values. So, to coin a phrase, don't half-arse it, don't half-arse your conservation areas and don't half-arse your production areas. And so, when it comes to clean paddocks, I mean the saying when I was growing up was clean paddocks equal full silos, but it's terrible for biodiversity. So the little things that you can do on your property to sort of to help that biodiversity. So instead of growing up, we did a lot of rock picking and stick picking and we burnt lots and lots of woody debris in windrows, just thinking we were doing the right thing. But sort of retaining. Retaining that woody debris and and moving them from from high production areas and then putting them into these conservation areas is a really easy way to to retain biodiversity values on your farm.
Speaker 2:So when you think about the sticks and the leaf litter, that must be really important for bugs.
Speaker 1:Incredibly important for bugs absolutely, which is then incredibly important for everything else, because everything else relies on those bugs. So, getting rid of that leaf litter, I look at it in two ways. One, you're getting rid of food for all those detritivorous insects like your cockroaches and your slater bugs and stuff like that, which feed a lot of woodland birds. But it's also you're removing a hundred year fertiliser block that's sitting on your farm. It's slowly releasing fertiliser over a hundred years. So if you remove that off your block over that hundred years, you're really taking a loss in productivity in the soil. So, yeah, it's good stuff, that woody debris.
Speaker 2:I do like woody debris and we'll come to how important it is in the channel, in the river channel, in a moment, but just before we go there. So imagine you're walking out on a property and you've got a landowner that's really keen to do better. So they've identified their river area as an area they're willing to fence off from stock, because we know stock's one of the biggest forces of degradation along riverbanks, and along their riverbank they've got a few big trees and a few sort of clumps of grass. How would that landholder go about working out what needs to happen to bring that riparian zone, which is where land and water meet, back to life?
Speaker 1:It can be difficult. I think each property it's going to be different, each river is going to be different and each issue attacking each issue is going to be different. I think, first and foremost, keeping stock off the river is the first thing that you need to do, and then, after that, comes the regeneration. So, whether it be planting behind where you've fenced off or whether you actually need to go in and get machines in the river to mitigate erosion control, yeah, it's all going to come at a site-by-site basis, so a lot of resources out to help you with that.
Speaker 1:Rivers of Carbon on their website definitely have a lot of resources to help you, you know, work your way through what issues you have and what might be the best way to go around it. But it's definitely going to be something that's going to be case by case. But keeping stock off, it would be definitely the first point. No point planting trees if the stock are going to eat it and there's no point, you know, getting expensive machines in and bringing in rock and armoring erosion control issues when the stock are just going to go and trample the banks again and negate any riparian growth that you've got back.
Speaker 2:So let's talk a bit more about erosion, because you've mentioned that a few times. If you've got a stream that you know has erosion happening, which is where you see bare earth and often stock make tracks which then enable that sediment to run straight into the stream, you may be in a situation where it's been cleared in the past and you've got what's commonly called mass failure or slumping or in some cases, even pillar erosion. It can look pretty grim. How do you go about working out whether you're going to need rock or you're going to need a machine, or you know like what do you need to do to address that? I know in some cases, if you actually leave it alone, it can heal itself if you allow the grass cover to go over it again. I know that you've been doing work on the Gudjumbi River here in the ACT. How did you know there where to get that erosion effort put in to actually address something that was quite badly?
Speaker 1:eroding.
Speaker 1:Generally you make an assessment on the severity. So you look at each site and generally you can tell how active it is. By you know you can see where the slumping's happening. If you have sections of soil that are getting in the river, that have large amounts of grass cover them, for example, you know that you probably got erosion. That's an undercut in the bank. You know, if you've got slumping, erosion and you've got large trees falling in, then you know you've got a further issue with bank stability. So again, site by site it can be difficult to do.
Speaker 1:Engineers as well are very handy to talk to when it comes to the large ones. I'm definitely not an engineer, so we outsource a lot to try and get experts in to have a look. But yeah, severity. So if you've got a relatively small erosion event happening on on your block, that's when it's pretty easy to to treat it. So you're really looking to mitigate it before it gets to that stage. When it is really small, you know that's when you can. You can, the farmer can do, do it themselves just with this rock, or with ironing, with with timber or or or know, using geotextile fabric. Yeah, when they do get more severe, that's when you probably need to look at engineering help or hydrologist help.
Speaker 2:And so, for anyone listening, we do actually have a project that did quite a lot of erosion works that Jed was responsible for managing, and we will put some photos up there so you can see the sort of work we've done there. But yeah, you're absolutely right. So I think it's really important for landholders to know that site by site is critical and that we often will get an engineer in if it's looking like a really big bit of work, because actually altering the flow has really big implications for rivers. Rivers like to move naturally, but sometimes with the erosion that is caused often by not enough cover or by stock, the river can get into all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes, and so you want to make sure that you're not going to add even further to that. So, yeah, thank you for that.
Speaker 2:So erosion is really important. So you've sorted your erosion. Then you're going to be looking at your site to get some plants in. I know for myself that I've planted over 2000 tube stock on our property and it's a great feeling putting them in at the beginning, and then you go back and you see what the goats have done, or you see what the deer have done and you see some of the cardboard, you know cartons pushed over. How much of that vegetation do we need to survive when you're putting in that that many plants?
Speaker 1:again, I think site by site basis. Joanne, I hate to hate to be that person, but but look some sites for example, I think a spot that you're talking about where you've planted some trees and the river's risen and washed them away. Sometimes that might be a bit disheartening, but these things happen when it comes to planting tube stock. So, look, we want to see as many survivors as we can. Usually I like to get a 90% survival rate, but some sites that's just not achievable. At the end of the day, if you look at it at a cost per cost basis, a tube stock's $3. So if you were to put in 100 tube stocks, it costs you $300. Let's say, one of those lives to be an old growth hollow bearing eucalyptus tree. That's worth $300 in my book. So it depends how you want to look at it, I think.
Speaker 2:I think that's a great way of looking at it, because I know that Jed has been out to our property. He's done a Land for Wildlife review on it and we're quite fortunate because we actually have a lot of intact vegetation, so that's vegetation that hasn't been damaged. It is a very steep property, which is why it hasn't been cultivated. But what I found really interesting, with Jed being able to look at the mix of plants there, was that a whole range of grass species I thought was the one species was actually four or five. How do you get your eye in so that you can actually identify all these plants?
Speaker 1:I really don't like not knowing what they are. It irks me. So if I come across a species and I don't know what it is, it irks me up at night so I make sure I look it up and find out what it is. But yeah, it's just a matter of getting your eye and knowing what the characteristics of the plant, of the differences of what the plants are. So that's why I really don't like botanists who name plants after other botanists, because to me the whole point of it is it's supposed to be a describing word and it's supposed to tell me what the difference is between that one and the other one, and so using the names as well is a really good way to most unless they name it after another botanist is a really good way to to narrow down to species I never thought of that, so the name is meant to give you a clue as to the plant.
Speaker 1:As to what this species and not that species.
Speaker 2:So tell our listeners what you told me to look out for in terms of the wrinkly armpits.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so there's two species of eucalypt that sort of come together. They're the whitebark eucalypts. Around this part of the world we have Eucalyptus monifera, which is a brittle gum, and E Eucalyptus Rossii, which is a scribbly gum, and they're very similar. The best way to tell the difference is the Rossii or the scribbly gum has wrinkly armpits. So the junction where the limb meets the trunk, they'll have wrinkly armpits, whereas the brittle gum or the Manifera won't. So wrinkly Rossii and manicured Manifera. That's how I remember that one.
Speaker 1:I always have to make up little rhymes or little tricks to remember things, so it's a good one to remember that one.
Speaker 2:That's a great one, because I actually do remember that, because you're telling me a story and it's that whole thing about the left and right brain. I know it's been debunked a bit, but it's linking that. For me it's an emotional response of oh aha, I get that and it makes me smile with the fact. Have you got any other examples of some of the grasses or trees that you're able to identify?
Speaker 1:So Chilean needlegrass can be difficult to identify. Chilean needlegrass looks a lot like our ostrostypes or our speargrasses. So the way that I remember how to identify it is on the Chilean needlegrass seed. So on the end of a there's a little white fleshy membrane called a corona. On the Chilean needle grass the fleshy membrane or the corona is hairy, and on the native spear grass it's not hairy. So the way I remember that is hairy. Chileans drink coronas. And then there's a native dock called Swamp Dock and its scientific name is Rumex Brownii. So when you're writing that in shorthand you take the first three letters of the genus name and the first three letters of the species name and when you write that down it's Rumbro. So I threw it as Caniva Rumbro, whereas the non-native dock is called Curled Dock and it's Rumex Cr Crisp X. So I say can I have a packet of chips, bro? Just silly things to try and help me remember. I've got a lot of them, oh they're great.
Speaker 2:I love them. I think what we will do, listeners, is to get Jed to write a few of those down and we'll add them to the show notes so you can have them as a handy hint as to how to identify some of these things. That's been really good. I've still got all these rhymes going through my head. So we have a tube stock guide on the Rivers of Carbon website that you were involved in in producing with Izzy. What is it about that guide that you think is particularly useful? Because I know we took quite some time to do it, because we did look across a lot of other guides that are out there and tried to make one that was pretty comprehensive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very comprehensive and I think that's where the strengths are. It gives you instructions on how to plant tube stock from A to Z, whether you're someone like yourself who's planted 2000, or whether you're just putting in your first tree.
Speaker 1:So we really did find there was a sort of a real knowledge gap there with landholders and practitioners on what are the do's and don'ts for planting tube stock, what are the right ways to go. So, yeah, I think Izzy did a fantastic job with that tube stock. She's left no stone unturned so there's really no question anyone could ask that they wouldn't find in that tube stock guide. So, yeah, I think it's really worth its weight in gold, that guide, just because, as I said, you can tell definitely that this was the best practice way to go, especially in this part of the world. A lot of stuff on European tree planting and North American tree planting, but not a lot for South Eastern Australia.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what we've found over the years with Rivers of Carbon is that for many landholders and people just interested in restoring rivers or grasslands, the material is scattered across so many different websites that you don't really know where to find it. So we are trying in our resources section to just bring that information together so that it's synthesised for you to make it a lot easier. So please do jump onto that resources section so that you can access that. It's free, and we just want to see better outcomes for rivers, so we'd love to have you start to use that resources page on our website.
Speaker 2:Let's talk a little bit about bugs, but bugs in the water Now. My mum was a water watch facilitator here in the ACT many, many years ago and she used to flourish her net a great deal. She was a fantastic biology teacher as well, actually, and she did a lot on really demonstrating how citizen science can be as rigorous and robust as science done in the lab. So I know that that's one of the central tenets for the Waterwatch program. Can you tell me a bit more about what it is that you do with that program and why you think it's important?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Waterwatch. We're a citizen science organisation. We monitor waterway health throughout the Upper Ramon Ridgy, so from Cooma, all the way down to Yass. We monitor waterway health in a few different ways. So we do our volunteers go out and take monthly water quality samples. We look at riparian condition and then the other one we do is the macroinvertebrate surveys.
Speaker 2:So tell me what is an example, and I don't know whether you're going to have funny names for these as well to remember them. There's a few, oh, there's a few. Excellent, I'm looking forward to that. So tell me a bit more about macroinvertebrates.
Speaker 1:Macroinvertebrates yes, they're really cool. I'm a big fan. Look, they're what we call the keystone species. So they're a species that is heavily relied upon in the food chain by most other aquatic organisms. So our turtles, our fish, our birds, our platypus they all rely really heavily on our water bugs for a source of food. They're also an indicator species, so they're a really good indicator of waterway health.
Speaker 1:So some water bugs are really sensitive to pollutants. Some water bugs are really tolerant of pollutants. So if I was to brandish a net, like your mum, and go do a quick sweep in the river and have a look, and if I was to find a lot of bugs that are really sensitive, that's an indicator that the water quality is really good. If I was to find bugs that are only really tolerant, that's probably an indication that there's an underlying issue there that we could investigate further. So doing macroinvertebrate surveys is a really quick, cheap, easy way for us to get a quick snapshot of what's happening in the river so then we can then investigate further if there is something else going wrong.
Speaker 2:So what's an example of a really tolerant species that you might get in your net?
Speaker 1:So a leech or a snail would probably be the most tolerant ones. Chewanne's having a big cringe there, but I'd love to see a leech or a snail here and there. Our really sensitive ones are the ones that live sort of upstream our stoneflies and our mayflies and our caddisflies. We really want to be seeing a good assembly of all. We want to be seeing sensitive and we want to be seeing tolerant bugs. Just because tolerant bugs are there, that doesn't necessarily mean that's a bad thing.
Speaker 2:We just don't want to see our sensitive bugs missing. So I can see that you've got your platypus socks on today. What do platypus like in terms of the macroinvertebrates that they might? They eat macroinvertebrates don't they?
Speaker 1:They solely eat macroinvertebrates, that's right. So platypus has to eat up to a third of its body weight every day in macroinvertebrates, and a lactating female possibly even more. Possibly up to 40% of their body weight every day. So some platypus can weigh up to two kilos. That's 600 grams of water bugs every day, and a water bug usually weighs less than 0.1 of a gram, so heavily relied upon by platypus. So without water bugs we wouldn't have platypus at all. And because they're so relied upon by the platypus, because the platypus at all, and because they're so relied upon by the platypus, because the platypus have such a big quota to fill every day.
Speaker 1:If we lose one of those orders, if we lose one of the platypus' bulk food source, then it just hasn't got enough food to survive. So at any one time in a river around here there's usually about 10 to 12 different orders of water bugs and then the biomass will be made up by that assemblage of bugs. So if you think about it in a human's perspective, we have a similar sort of arrangement of main staple foods that we use, if we think about grains, if we think about meat or veggies. So if you were to get rid of all the veggies or all the grains in the world, a lot of humans wouldn't be able to subside anymore. And it's exactly the same for the platypus. If we were just to get rid of all the snails or get rid of all the mayflies, then that's a massive, massive chunk of the biomass down there that makes up a lot of their food source. So a lot of the time they just won't be able to survive.
Speaker 2:And so what do those water bugs need then? I'm assuming that it's similar to the conversation we had about the mid-story, and neat and tidy Are you saying we need messy rivers?
Speaker 1:Exactly what I'm saying. That's right. So we need diversity of habitat for water bugs to thrive. So water bugs, they all have different roles and they're very, very diverse in what they do. Some of them are shredders, like our caddisflies and our yabbies, which are sort of detritivorous and they break up decaying organic matter in the water. Other of them, like our snails and our mayflies and our stowflies, they're what we call scrapers, so they scrape algae off rocks and they clean up our rivers like that. Other ones are predators, like our boatmen, and our true bugs usually are predators, so they're cleaning up all the other bugs.
Speaker 1:So you know you really need a diversity of habitat. So you know we need fast-flowing riffle, we need slow-moving pools, we need all sorts of different species of water plants, we need macrophytes that grow in the water. We need water plants that grow outside of the water. We also need overhanging vegetation of canopy and mid-story over the water, as a lot of our fish and stuff also eat terrestrial bugs and they drop in from that mid-story. So yeah, you really need a big diversity of habitat, just like our terrestrial habitats.
Speaker 2:So I get this picture of you running up and down the river with a net, you know, scooping bugs out with kids, with volunteers, and your enthusiasm being so contagious. What is it that gives you the buzz? Because I know that you give people a buzz with your passion for what it is that you do.
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean, obviously I love nature and I love to be outside and I love to be involved with it all, but I love to see people that love nature as well. You know one example I do platypus walks for Waterwatch up on the Cranbourne River and I had a lady come along to a platypus walk. It was 94. And she had never, ever seen a platypus before. She didn't believe me that we might see one on the walk. Lo and behold, we get across the bridge, there's one. And the first thing she yelled out was oh my giddy aunt, and I just absolutely lost it. I thought it was the funniest thing I've ever heard. She was so surprised and so excited to see a platypus. I thought at 94, that's just fantastic that people are still passionate and still happy and still love to see wildlife and learn new things.
Speaker 2:so that's part of it that's fantastic and I haven't heard anyone say, oh my giddy aunt, for a long time. But that's a wonderful, a wonderful story and and I know just from my own experience of working in the area of rivers and I think it's why I've stayed working in rivers without actually studying them formally is that they can just elicit such joy from people, from spotting something or finding that they've got a bird, that their neighbour doesn't. This incredible part of the landscape where you start to tune in and I know just having walked with you when you came to do our Land for Wildlife survey you were seeing all these things that I'd never seen. I was getting really hung up on the weeds and you were saying just don't worry too much about them, you've got all this amazing stuff. It's that glass half full way of looking at the world.
Speaker 1:And it can be difficult being a landholder and getting bogged down into it. You can put a lot of effort into removing weeds and trying to improve it, and a lot of the time it's a two-step forward, one-step backwards situation. And when you do take that step backwards it can be daunting and it can be depressing. But I think it's important just to look back and look at what you're actually saving and what you're actually protecting. At the end of the day, I think a lot of the damage has already been done, so half of the battle is just ensuring it doesn't get any worse than what it is, and if you can do that and protect what's left, I think that is a huge plus.
Speaker 2:Great, really well said, jed, because I do know that us humans, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and our world thinks about such short timeframes. A couple of weeks ago I was facilitating a workshop for the Tannurung Land and Water Council, an Aboriginal group based in Victoria, and there's an area called the Corrup Wetlands and they are putting forward a 100-year vision for that wetland and I thought that is so sensible because that's how long it is that it's going to take to actually bring back or even bring back is the wrong word but to restore these environments into something where environment and humans can cohabit and co-create. So that was a really inspiring thing to do. And I do remind myself I'm doing what I can right now and there will be people that will follow, so if they can see that I've done my best, then that's really all you can do.
Speaker 1:That's right. I look at the historic effort it took to put it into the position it is now. I read a statistic the other day that they estimate that a billion trees were cut down before 1900. And if you think of the effort it took with axe and saw to cut down a billion trees well you know, you can see that it's probably going to take the same amount of effort to put them back. You can look at it two ways. I look at it as it's opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think you're right, it's opportunity and hope. I think, yeah, okay. Well, as we come to the end of our discussion today, can you tell me if you have a favourite river or waterway to which you really get a lot of joy from?
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually I've got two. Can I say?
Speaker 2:two. Yeah, you can say two.
Speaker 1:I grew up in Arwood. I actually grew up fishing on the Maclay River, which runs east, starts in Arwood, runs east down to Kempsey. So growing up as a kid there was a lot of fishing in that river, a lot of estuary fishing. I loved it, so I have a spot for that one. Of late, though, my new favourite river is the Queanbeyan River. I really love the Queanbeyan River. It's my lady the Queanbeyan. It starts up in the Tinderies. Every time I go I find a platypus. It's got really good water quality and I just think community of Queanbeyan really looks after that river and I think it's a stand-up job they do. Cranby and Landcare, cranby and Council. I really really like that river.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's fantastic. I'll have to go and have another look at it. I haven't been out there for quite some time. Where do you feel most connected to country and to nature?
Speaker 1:That's a good one. I don't think I'd say there's any one place. I think just being in nature, I think, is where I feel most connected. I mean, I'm happy on the river, I'm happy up in the hills, I'm happy in the grasslands, I'm happy in the rainforest, so I just like being out and about. You know, I wouldn't say I'm connected to any one place, I'm just connected to the idea of it, I suppose.
Speaker 2:Now I know you have Tarek, your lovely son, six months old, getting ready to crawl. You think what lessons or what experiences do you want him to have that you think have really enabled you to connect with the nature and the work that you do?
Speaker 1:I think, learning to enjoy it, so learning to appreciate it. I was very lucky with my parents growing up. They taught me how to appreciate nature and how to love it and how to spend time in it. I was a pretty hyperactive child when I was a kid, so mum was very good at just letting me go and letting me run around in the bush and then when I was needed again, she'd whistle very loudly and I'd come running back like a good puppy. That's what I want to teach Tarek is teach him to learn and learn to enjoy it and to learn to love it, and I think it's an easy thing to do.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's fantastic, jed, so great talking to you, and I can see you as a kelpie racing around, no problem at all. Thank you so much for talking to us today. Listeners, we will put some extra resources there for you a little bit about water bugs and Waterwatch, links to our Rivers of Carbon resource page and, of course, some of Jed's wonderful naming conventions to enable you to remember those wrinkly armpits of that eucalyptus he was mentioning. I look forward to talking to you all again soon. Thanks for listening. You can subscribe to Take Me to the River wherever you get your podcasts. Visit arrcau forward slash podcast to learn more. That's arrcau forward slash podcast.