Ciaran Ernst-Russell talks citizen science, bush adventures, and having a crack
Protecting our natural environment through youth-led citizen science
Connecting with nature through art and photography
We believe that when people engage nature through art, it fosters a deep connection of custodianship to this country and a care for nature.
— NatureArt Lab

The COVID-19 lockdowns were a unique time that forced people to slow down, stay put, and reflect. While a challenging period, for many it was an opportunity to more deeply connect with nature, coming to appreciate our backyards and neighbourhood reserves in a new light. NatureArt Lab’s ‘Reflections on Nature’ project, launched at the beginning of the pandemic, encouraged people to meaningfully engage with their local environment through close artistic observation and expression — whilst also creating a vibrant online community where people could connect in a time of extended social isolation.
Moderated by a passionate team of artists, ecologists, environmental educators and activists, a Facebook group was created in which members could share their environmental artworks with a like-minded online community. Between April 2020 and May 2021, moderators provided thirteen themes to guide participants’ reflections including sense of place, transformations, emergence and renewal. The resulting collection paints a rich and complex picture of the pandemic’s impact on people’s engagement with nature, as well as tracing the slow recovery of landscapes in the wake of the Black Summer bushfires. A selection of contributions was exhibited at the Old Barn Gallery in Pialligo earlier this year.

Source: Irene Harmsworth
With 600 members and counting, not just in the ACT but beyond, the Facebook group remains an active creative community despite the formal portion of the project being over.
In 2023, NatureArt Lab partnered with the Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment to survey participants about their experience with the project, the pandemic and their connection to nature.
A refocus on the local
Many participants expressed that the necessity to refocus their attention on their immediate surroundings during COVID-19 had a positive impact on their sense of connection to nature.
When asked if COVID-19 impacted their relationship with their local environment, 85 per cent of respondents agreed that it had — and this was overwhelmingly for the better. “[The pandemic] was very positive in forcing me and so many others to be closer to nature,” wrote one participant. Another said that while they missed being able to go out and explore nature further afield, they found themselves “more in tune and aware of my ‘micro-environment’; the world within my immediate area. I saw and researched never before seen birds and insects and joined a nature journaling club online which has continued post-pandemic”.

Observing the natural world through an artistic lens encourages us to be highly present in our environment. Requiring keen attention to detail, nature sketching and other art forms can lead to us see things we might not ordinarily notice.
For one participant who was immunocompromised from a serious illness when the pandemic hit, learning to engage with nature through photography was a nothing short of a life-changing experience. “Whilst COVID caused us to pause our lives somewhat, the fact that my illness occurred just prior to its arrival was, for me, a blessing in disguise as it allowed me to see and appreciate nature in a way that totally changed my life for the better,” he wrote. “I began to notice things that I had never stopped to look at before and found nature to be a fascinating world to discover [..] I have become much more aware of, and have a greater appreciation of our local environment, and am now engaging with like-minded people and groups to become active in conservation.”
From observation to action
Indeed, many respondents advised that their increased sense of connection to nature has resulted in direct environmental action. 85 per cent of respondents stated that their behaviour towards the environment has changed following their participation in the ‘Reflections on Nature’ project during the pandemic. Participants detailed the ways in which they are now getting involved:
“Joined our local Landcare group.”
“[Took up] monitoring activities such as bird surveys and NatureMapr.”
“Increased volunteering to support local environmental lobby.”
“Frogwatch.”
“It encouraged me to make the effort to join in on nature tours, talks, exhibitions and other events.”
Never before has it been so important to reassess our place in the world as a global pandemic forces humanity to think differently about nature and our home on earth. The ‘Reflections on Nature’ project creatively encouraged people to do so on an intimate, localised scale — reminding us that the here and now matter.
You can read more about NatureArt Lab’s work on their website.

Orchid spotting with Canberra Nature Map
We are the next generation caring for the environment
At North Ainslie Primary School, students are encouraged to connect to and care for nature. The school was awarded the 2021 Junior Landcare Team Award for its efforts in this space, which include a range of projects and programs relating to sustainability education, green space regeneration and gang-gang cockatoo conservation.
Sustainability education
The school runs an educational program called Personal and Community Health, which focuses on sustainability and gardening to teach students about caring for the environment. Students have the opportunity to:
- participate in sustainability and garden lessons in the school veggie garden
- engage in community initiatives such as Birdlife Australia’s gang-gang project
- support student-led initiatives such as the Green Team and Waste Warriors
- participate in the Garden Club run by the Green Team
- undertake sustainable practices such as composting and recycling soft plastic waste, and
- celebrate important days such as National Tree Day and World Bee Day.
Green space regeneration

One project undertaken recently was the regeneration of a large section of the school grounds. This project transformed a previously bare and dusty oval into a beautiful naturescape with a dry creek bed, sand and mud pit, four natural turfed playing fields, more than 50 trees and hundreds of local native plants. It also has an extensive network of water infiltration trenches. The project was a collaboration between local landscape designers, experts in water smart urban design, play experts, students, staff, parents, and local Indigenous leaders.
The project is now complete, and the students can enjoy connecting to nature daily during free play or class time. It is a beautiful space that can also be enjoyed by people in the neighbourhood outside school hours.
Gang-gang project

Source: Amy Pepper
The gang-gang project is another key environmental initiative with which North Ainslie Primary School is involved. This is an online course run through Birdlife Australia – Birds in Schools Project. Birds in Schools engages students in the scientific process through investigation and monitoring the birds and habitat of their school grounds. Students use their own observational skills and ideas to develop and implement action plans to help their local bird life. Action plans may include planting native plants, installing nest boxes or bird baths, or delivering education campaigns in their school or local neighbourhood.
Approximately 160 students from Years 3 and 4 participated in the project in 2022. As a result of their involvement, students:
- developed a greater awareness of local plant species and how these contribute to a healthy habitat for birds
- learnt about the importance of providing a variety of plants in a garden or urban space, including ground cover, an understorey and a tree canopy
- learnt about natural food sources for birds, with a particular focus on gang-gangs
- learnt about the value of old trees and the importance of hollows. They also watched the secret life of birds and learnt about 3D printing tree hollows!
- learnt about some of the reasons that gang-gangs are a threatened species such as habitat loss due to bushfires and clearing
- undertook a bird survey to identify the presence of birds on their redeveloped oval space and learnt the names of other bird species, and
- designed what they thought would be the ultimate habitat for birds, received plants from Greening Australia and planted them in the space next to the oval redevelopment area.
Four participating students volunteered to speak to us about their involvement in the project: Victoria, Lily, Anjali and Benjamin. One of the challenges the students discussed was how to bring water into the landscape for the birds. One of the students suggested people in the neighbourhood could have bird baths in their front gardens or include a bird bath fixed in the ground as part of their outdoor area. The students also spoke about the need for bird boxes, as tree hollows can take up to 200 years to form and birds need somewhere to live in the meantime. Overall, the gang-gang project gave students practical experience in thinking about how to create a bird-friendly habitat right on their school grounds.
All of these initiatives run by the school have positive outcomes for students and the future of Landcare. Ensuring students are surrounded by nature on a daily basis gives them the opportunity to develop their love for nature. By engaging youth in Landcare and sustainability projects, the school then supports the students’ natural desire to take action and care for their local environment.
“We are the next generation. It is important that all students learn how to care for the environment.”
— North Ainslie Primary School student

21 years of citizen science in the making
Mobilising volunteer efforts to restore native habitat after Black Summer
The summer of 2019–20 was one that most of us would like to forget, though it will likely forever be burnt into our minds. During the bushfires that summer, 87,923 hectares of the ACT — including 80 per cent of Namadgi National Park1 — was burnt. In the aftermath, around 1000 Canberrans put their hands up to work with Landcare on bushfire recovery efforts.
To mobilise this new volunteer workforce, Landcare ACT coordinated with a range of partners on projects to protect and restore native flora and fauna in the wake of the Black Summer.

Two of these projects saw Landcare ACT and Southern ACT Catchment Group partner with the ACT Government, rural lessees and scientists to coordinate community action in the restoration of sub-alpine sphagnum bogs, fens and grasslands habitats in Namadgi National Park. On-ground activities included:
- weed control, which reduced competition to native vegetation naturally regenerating on burnt areas
- erosion control, which increased water quality as well as habitat condition for native instream and riparian species
- ecological monitoring, including pest plant surveys and flora surveys
- installing shade cloth to promote the regrowth of sphagnum, and
- installing fences to restrict grazing animals.
Volunteers worked with experts, such as Associate Professor Ben Keaney from the ANU, to assist this recovery project.

“Canberra’s bogs play a critical role in our ecosystem. In addition to providing habitat for endangered species, bogs contain sphagnum moss which plays an essential role in filtering our drinking water and regulating the flow of water, much like a tap, into our catchment areas,” said Associate Professor Keaney. “Canberra’s bogs have suffered under the impacts of the 2003 and 2019–20 bushfires, and more broadly climate change. We need to help our bogs recover so they can continue to play their critical role in the environment.”
While the projects focussed on restoring habitat, they also had positive outcomes for the volunteers themselves. Volunteers shared how much it meant to them to be able to contribute to landscape restoration after a difficult year of bushfires, hazardous smoke and the pandemic. A film about the project can be found here.
The Frogs from the Ashes project saw Landcare ACT working with Ginninderra Catchment Group to support the recovery of threatened frog species in bushfire affected areas of Namadgi National Park. Following extensive destruction of frog habitat in the Orroral Valley Fire, 10 volunteers undertook 34 surveys during the 2021–22 breeding season, producing a significant amount of new native frog data. Twelve long-term monitoring sites were established.
“Historically, there has been a really limited understanding of frog species’ responses to fire, so the data from this project has been invaluable. Before the fires both Dendy’s toadlet (Pseudophryne dendyi) and Bibron’s toadlet (Pseudophryne bibronii) had been experiencing long-term population declines and we needed to find out if they had survived and locate any remnant populations,” said Anke Maria Hoefer, ACT and Region FrogWatch Coordinator at Ginninderra Catchment Group.
According to Karissa Preuss, CEO of Landcare ACT, these Landcare-led bushfire recovery projects “highlighted the value of local environmental protection projects in supporting the recovery of bushfire-affected communities and environments”. The involvement of volunteers in post-bushfire recovery work illustrates the valuable role that community-based Landcare organisations can play in environmental protection and restoration.
- These projects were supported by a number of organisations that provided specific funding for environmental recovery following Black Summer including the Australian Government, Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service (WIRES), and Landcare Australia. ↩︎
Volunteering to protect and enhance our urban green spaces