26 – Involving volunteers in threatened plant monitoring in South Australia^341Box 26.2. Horses for courses
Not all NRM regions have the luxury of a large pool of volunteers to rely on, and in
the more rural regions it’s often a matter of working with the resources available.
For example, project officers in South Australia’s Murray–Darling Basin Region
worked on a program with Trees For Life to engage and train volunteers to monitor
five nationally threatened flora species across 19 sites on public land. Despite
having excellent newspaper, radio and social media exposure for the project, the
task of motivating local residents to become volunteers was challenging. Although
the turnout for the field activities was good, the majority of attendees were from
Adelaide, with only a handful of locals. The consequence is that many participants
will not continue their involvement in the project. Furthermore, building and
supporting ongoing volunteer engagement is only achievable with ongoing project
funding, rather than short-term grant funding. However, for the volunteers who did
participate, the opportunity to learn about threatened species and undertake a
different type of conservation project has been rewarding. Fortunately, some
landholders with threatened plant populations have shown an interest in getting
involved, and often assist the project officer with the collection of monitoring data.
Indeed, one landholder has been collecting annual population data on three
Fig. 26.2. Landholder David Kilpin monitors a population of the nationally endangered
white beauty spider-orchid Caladenia argocalla (inset), found on his property. Photos:
Doug Bickerton