GeoCatch to install FireWise garden and hold interactive turtles field trips with City of Busselton funding

GeoCatch is set to use its funding from the City of Busselton’s You Choose program for two projects in the region. Members of the public voted for their favourite community projects to receive grants under the initiative, with the organisation one of multiple recipients. GeoCatch will use the funding to partner with the Dunsborough Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade and the Forever Project to establish a demonstration FireWise garden at Dunsborough Fire Station this winter. There will be a community workshop with sustainability expert Chris Ferreira as part of its installation, which will demonstrate how resident can design and create a FireWise garden of their own. Bay OK Gardens project officer Lisa Massey said it was important to plan a garden which can withstand a bushfire. “FireWise gardens are designed to not only be an attractive amenity setting for our houses, but by planting the right plants, we can help protect our home in a bushfire,” she said. “These landscapes can effectively resist ember attack and fire creep while maintaining a cool, vegetated landscape.” A Citizen Science initiative which will enable community members to improve knowledge of the southwestern snake-neck turtle through interactive field trips, workshops and monitoring has also been funded. GeoCatch project officer Shannon Clohessy said the homes for the unique hard-shelled creatures are being threatened by clearing and catchment destruction, foxes, and other predators. “At the moment, we don’t know the exact numbers remaining in the wild, so this project is vital to understanding the populations that remain,” she said. Harry Butler Institute aquatic ecologist Dr Stephen Beatt said although good progress has been made protecting the species, there is still a long way to go. “While we’re on track to achieving goals in project wetlands, there are still many wetlands not being protected,” he said. “We now need to expand the project across the entire range of this species if we’re to prevent local extinctions.” The Bay OK Gardens project is jointly supported by Royalties for Region’s Healthy Estuaries WA and Revitalising Geographe Waterways programs.