Expanding the Programme. The Development of Community Networks: Their Achievements and Roles in Conservation and Recovery

Abstract

Much of the recent community enthusiasm and their roles in conservation progress has been coordinated through extensive and expanding networks of expertise and interest, bringing together the various members of the constituency concerned with the wellbeing of O. richmondia. These successive networks have matured and changed somewhat in character, whilst maintaining the primary focus. The community networks were initiated following the continuing interest in the birdwing conservation project, highlighted when the Project was announced to the journalists attending the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. In the years following, CSIRO scientists helped to form three community-based groups, the Richmond Birdwing Conservation Project 1999–2004 (RBCP, later becoming a section of The Hut Environmental and Community Association, THECA), the independent Richmond Birdwing Recovery Network Inc. (RBRN), formed in 2005–2010, and the Richmond Birdwing Conservation Network (RBCN) formed in 2010 to absorb RBRN members, and initiated under the broader umbrella of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland. Members of earlier networks supervised schools projects and later propagated and dispersed for planting in excess of 30,000 vines from 1994 to 2002. Subsequently approximately 12,000 vines were planted between 2005 and 2011 by various community catchment groups. RBRN continued to map the location of wild food plants and began recording data on adult butterfly sightings in 2006.