An inspiring and diverse trip, one of four conference field trips this journey through the West Tamar had some great stops along the way. Urban habitat plantings, biodiversity, small farms and bandicoots...
Image: Tim Reed of Wenlock Enterprises. © Rebecca Johnson
The first stop of the day was to the urban gardens at the Windsor Precinct, where the West Tamar Council has transformed a bare patch of land into a beautiful native garden for the community and support bandicoot habitat (we also spotted a giant feral cat in the midst of our bandicoot discussion!)
Image: Urban Gardens, Windsor Precinct. © Ochre Bodhi
Up next we went to Legana Cherries where we got to see the amazing (and very cute) collaboration between a vast variety of cherry trees, sheep and bees!
Image: Legana Cherries. © Ochre Bodhi
We then visited Wenlock Farm, where we were shown the innovative ways that Wenlock enterprises is bringing together production and environmental care, such as carbon farming and pasture cropping. Tim Reed (Wenlock Farm) walked us around his property and showed us some of the ways they are working on rehabilitating the farm since taking it over.
Image: Wenlock Farm. © Ochre Bodhi
Lastly we moved back from the rural to the urban landscape, and saw the great work that is being done in Exeter by the local childcare, by Tamar NRM, and by West Tamar Landcare. On our walk through the area, we were lucky to also hear about cat management, Land for Wildlife, and a PhD project on Eastern Barred Bandicoots.
Image: Exeter. © Ochre Bodhi
It was fantastic to see so many great things happening in the West Tamar region. An inspiring day for sure!
Images: © Rebecca Johnson
A huge thanks UTAS for sponsoring this field trip. A big thanks to West Tamar Council, NRM North, Tamar NRM, Legana Cherries, Wenlock Farm, Exeter Childcare Centre and all those who came along and made this field trip possible!
