Details of successful application by Kiewa Catchment Landcare group for funding to carry out a dung beetle trial
Dung Beetle Trial
“Do it with Dung – from the Mountains to the Murray”
In August this year, the Kiewa Catchment Landcare Groups, with Belinda Pearce and the North East Landcare facilitators, submitted a “Caring for our Country” application to fund a catchment-wide “Dung beetle – Soil health – Water quality” project.
The application received enormous community support with over 100 letters of support, and we are delighted to announce that it has been fully funded. The Project will span the entire North East Catchment and also Corowa shire.
It will commence in January 2009 and run through to the end of November. Key aspects will include:
- the establishment of fortnightly dung beetle community-based monitoring sites
- training of volunteers in beetle identification and monitoring
- distribution of dung beetle species and trailing of potentially suitable species
- caring for beetles, soil health and parasite management field days
Belinda Pearce will manage the project. Over the past three years Belinda has managed several dung beetle projects for the Lucyvale Better Beef Group, and she is currently studying soil science and entomology with the University of New England. Belinda and husband Les have a beef property in Kergunyah.
Details of training opportunities and how you can get involved will be available in the New Year. This is an exciting project, which will bring many benefits to our region. Congratulations to the many people who helped to make the application a successful one.