Time to Thrive

Bellingen Shire community comes together to hold a festival aimed at showcasing the skills, knowledge and talent across the region.

Thrive is a free one day festival at Bellingen Shire Showgrounds on Saturday 4th March with bonus tours and activities on Sunday 5th March.

Organised by the not-for-profit charitable organisation OzGREEN, this highly inclusive event is designed to bring everyone together to build community belonging and connectedness.

Running at the same time as the regular Bellingen Growers and Poultry Market, Thrive Festival will involve all sectors of the Bellingen Shire community including, community groups, emergency services, food producers, Gumbaynggirr elders, health professionals, musicians, renewable energy experts, weather watchers, environmentalists, performance artists, and government.

Thrive Festival was envisioned by a group of passionate people living in Bellingen Shire at a weekend workshop run by Bellingen Shire Council in November 2020. Mid pandemic and not too long after the bushfires, local residents were given opportunities to discuss ways to build community resilience. One of the recommendations resulting from the workshop was to run a shire wide community event that would strengthen networks and provide people with access to skills, tools and resources to prepare for future disasters.

"Community resilience means different things to different people. At OzGREEN, we believe that community resilience is about linking people together so that they can share local knowledge and take personal and collective action to prepare for future disasters that may affect them".

- Kathleen Hannah, Resilient Communities Program Manager, OzGREEN

The festival program is jam packed with a variety of unique and exciting activities that cover a holistic range of important topics such as water, food, energy, ecosystem and economic security. There will also be a focus on how to prepare for future disasters, such as, fire and flood, as well as, a variety of hosts on mental health and wellbeing activities.

"We've worked really hard over the last few months to make sure there's something for everyone at Thrive. There's interactive skill building workshops, talks and demonstrations by emergency services, visioning sessions, mental health activities, panel discussions, Gumbaynggirr storytelling, entertainment, stalls and lots of fun activities for kids.

We're really looking forward to bringing so many people across the community together"

- Alexandra Moller, Thrive Festival Coordinator, OzGREEN

A key objective of Thrive Festival is to rebuild community following a series of disasters and to prepare for future challenges that lie ahead. Another important aspect of the festival is to bring new and long time residents and community groups together in an all inclusive way.

"Bellingen Shire is full of talented people. Collectively we have everything we need to sustain a beautiful, happy and healthy place for many generations to come, but to do this, we all need to all work together. I'm really hoping that Thrive will enable and empower many different people living in Bellingen Shire to become involved in their community".

- Anna Juodvalkis, Partnerships Manager, OzGREEN

Thrive Festival is funded and supported by Bellingen Shire Council via a grant from the NSW Government.

See Thrive Festival to keep updated, or to book into one of the Sunday tours and activities here.

Bellingen Riverwatch receives national award

Amy Denshire, Bellingen Riverwatch Program Manager, OzGREEN, and Anna Juodvalkis, Partnerships Manager, OzGREEN, very excited to represent the Bellingen Riverwatch partners at the awards night and to receive recognition for the 5-year-long leading-edge citizen science program that operates in the Bellinger and Kalang catchments.

Bellingen Riverwatch, one of the largest citizen science water quality monitoring programs in NSW, and the largest citizen science macroinvertebrate monitoring program in Australia, recently received two National awards at the River Basin Management Society Awards Gala. 

Competing with projects from all around Australia and capital cities, this impressive program from the small town in Bellingen won the people's choice for and was a finalist in the 'Involving Community in Waterway Management' category. Their people's choice category got 50% more votes than any other category, which indicates the high level of support this community has for the program.

This recognition helps to propel Bellingen Riverwatch forward. 

“We aim to be an exemplar of best practice citizen science and are very much on the journey to becoming this. These awards help shine a light on the work we are doing - supporting the recovery of the critically endangered Bellinger River Snapping turtle and helping to protect our waterways - and strengthening our community while we do it!” 

- Amy Denshire, Bellingen Riverwatch Program Manager, OzGREEN

Bellingen Riverwatch’s water quality monitoring citizen science program sees 40 volunteers and 4 schools work together to test our rivers at 20 sites every month. Here, Andy Core, Teacher, Bellingen High School, demonstrates techniques to his students. 

Bellingen Riverwatch sees more than sixty volunteers come together across two citizen science programs, to test our rivers for water quality and monitor macroinvertebrates (waterbugs).

The Bellingen Riverwatch partnership would like to thank the community for the support they have for this program, and would like to extend a massive congratulations to the incredible, dedicated Bellingen Riverwatch volunteers.

“We also host events to foster connection between volunteers, the community, and the environment. With the support of partners, the program is set to expand in 2023, with riverbank repair work at Gordonville Crossing, which our volunteers are very excited about!”

- Sam Daykin, Bellingen Riverwatch Coordinator, OzGREEN

Bellingen Riverwatch is set to launch a new riparian program arm in 2023, starting with a riparian restoration project at Gordonville Crossing. Here, volunteer, Toni, plants trees with her granddaughter at a Bellingen Riverwatch event at Thora.

Bellingen Riverwatch could not do this important work without the support of its partners and would like to thank the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, Bellingen Shire Council, Healthy North Coast, Vendart Diagnostics, NSW Waterwatch, Bellinger Landcare Inc, EnviroComm Connections and OzGREEN.

If you are interested in joining the Bellingen Riverwatch family of volunteers, please contact Sam on sam@ozgreen.org.au.

Bellingen Riverwatch releases 5-year data report

“Are our rivers healthy?” is one of the most commonly asked questions of Bellingen Riverwatch volunteers and partners. Bellingen Riverwatch is a local citizen science program that sees 60- volunteers and 14 steering committee partners working together to test our rivers health - this program has become one of the largest citizen science water quality monitoring programs in NSW and the largest citizen science macroinvertebrate monitoring program in Australia.

This month, Bellingen Riverwatch is releasing it’s 5-year data report. The overall condition of rivers across NSW is moderate, according to NSW State of Environments website, however, Bellingen Riverwatch data (2017-2022) indicates that the condition of the rivers in the Bellinger and Kalang catchments is far from moderate, and are in very good health. It supports BR partner’s understanding that these are very unique rivers and some of the healthiest rivers in Australia.

“With water quality data, the Bellinger catchment scored 90% and the Kalang scored 94%; our macroinvertebrate (waterbug) data indicates relatively healthy to very healthy macroinvertebrate communtities, our Platypus eDNA data tell s us that this region is a stronghold for the platypus, and our pesticide data tells us that no pesticides were detected in the seven sites sampled.”

- Sam Daykin, Bellingen Riverwatch Coordinator. 

“Despite these fantastic results, there are four main areas of concern arising from this data: 1) Upper Bellinger River; 2) Summervilles Road; 3) Caratti Creek; and 4) Spicketts Creek.”

- Justine Elder, River and Biodiversity Officer, Bellingen Shire Council, Bellingen Riverwatch Steering Committee member.

The first recommendation in the report is to protect what we have. Caring for the environment doesn't only look like improving areas of poor health.

“In terms of stream health it is usually more effective to protect (preserve) reaches of stream that remain in good condition, than to spend huge amounts of money trying to rehabilitate reaches that are already damaged. Similarly, it is usually more efficient to stop a stream deteriorating than to try to fix it later.”

- Rutherford (1999)

“There are opportunities to protect Australia’s most important aquatic areas so that future generations do not have to pay the high costs of rehabilitation (e.g. as has happened for the River Murray)". 

- Kingsord et al (2005)

The Bellingen Riverwatch Steering Committee believes that the residents of this area, and the tourists that visit these river systems are facing this opportunity here now. 

They ask all residents and tourists to work together to protect these special river systems. For the diverse species that rely on these rivers now (such as the critically endangered Bellinger River Snapping Turtle), for the ecosystems downstream, and for future generations.

The three key takeaways of what we can do to help, as outlined in the report, are:

1. Continue collecting data - an important aspect of protecting pristine rivers includes long term data collection.

2. Continue regenerating the riverbank - The report recommends 20 metres of good quality riparian zone along all rivers in both catchments (with the exception for where structural works are required). 

3. Undetake further investigation - Three areas of further investagation are recommended: 1) The origins of high phosphorous at Upper Bellinger sites (B1, B2, B2.1, B3, B3.1); 2) The potential sources of elevated levels of phosphate and turbidity and lower levels of dissolved oxygen at B7.1 (Caratti Creek).; and 3)The cause of these continuing poor water quality results at S1 (Spicketts Creek).

Read Bellingen Riverwatch’s 5-Year Data Report here.

Bellingen Riverwatch would not be possible without our incredible family of volunteers and partners. Bellingen Riverwatch would like to thank the NSW Government and its Saving our Species Program, Bellingen Shire Council, Healthy North Coast, Vendart Diagnostics, Vincent Fairfax Foundation, NSW Waterwatch, Bellinger Landcare Inc, EnviroComm Connections and OzGreen; as well as the volunteers who have contributed to the data included in this report: 

If you are interested in joining the BR family of volunteers, please contact Sam on sam@ozgreen.org.au.