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Welcome to IEWF and RNC Alliance - Pacific website.
Restoring degraded ecosystems and the natural function of urban landscapes.
Home of the Habitat Network.
Last updated January 2010
Catch up with the latest news on our updated "News" page.
See our new brochure:
Weed removal & habitat - Before you start...look, listen & consider.
Also find out about the Habitat Network and how you can help save our small native birds - see below.
Primary schools in particular are invited to get involved.
Check out the invasive vine brochures (links below).
Visit this link to see
how a community can restore the natural function of their local area .
Weed identification
For quick and easy identification of common garden weeds, potentially invasive plants and
environmental weeds go to
Web Weed Lookup. Also find out more about what weeds are, how they are spread
and how to control them.
See our new brochure:
Weed removal & habitat - Before you start...look, listen & consider.
Habitat Network
This habitat restoration project has its centre in Ryde and Hunter's Hill in Sydney, Australia. However anyone interested
in the conservation of natural areas, ecological restoration,
corridors connecting natural areas, planting of habitat corridors, habitat in backyards, native plants,
native animals, soil health and
sustainable gardening
is welcome to become part of the Habitat Network.
Please see our brochure:
Habitat Network - Restoring Natural Capital
.
Our aim is to reconnect isolated populations of small native birds, which through loss of habitat
are rapidly disappearing from our urban environment.
By including small pockets of native plants in our gardens we can
re-create lost habitat.
At the same time we improve our soils, biodiversity and landscape function.
Follow this link for a list of some
native habitat plants for the Sydney region
and this link for some that are
edible.
It is also important to protect existing habitat, which is being used
for nesting or as the main living location by native birds or animals, even if weedy.
If the habitat is weedy, replacement
native habitat needs to be either regenerated or planted AND only after it is in use by the target species
should the weedy habitat be considered for removal. Please see our brochure:
Weed removal & habitat - Before you start...look, listen & consider.
Become a member of the Habitat Network. There are no fees.
The only obligation is to plant a pocket of local native habitat plants in your garden.
Our members are also helping plant habitat pockets and corridors on public lands.
With the assistance of local councils we are experimenting with ways to re-create native habitat near
existing populations of small birds and monitoring the use by the birds. We would like to hear from
others who have carried out similar activities.
We are networking with
other native corridor and habitat projects. On our other projects page
you will also find interesting and useful information and links to other websites. Please let us know what you are doing so that
we can network with your project too.
If you would like to hear more about the Habitat Network, join, share your experiences or
start a similar project in your local area please send an email to Bev at
info@iewf.org.
Individuals, councils, families, schools, businesses, church and community groups are
all welcome to take part in this project.
Schools
Restoring
Natural Capital environmental PowerPoint
presentation is available for Australian primary schools.
This colourful and informative PowerPoint presentation (including script) covers many facets
of the current primary curriculum.
It explains what is natural capital, how we are losing our natural capital
and gives many simple examples of what can be done to improve our local environment.
It also talks about the importance of native habitat and
encourages the creation of a habitat area in your school grounds to link into a habitat network.
To get a copy of this presentation simply email info@iewf.org.
We can either send you a link from which to download the presentation or we can mail
a DVD to your school at no charge. Please provide the name of your school and location.
Community nursery and garden
As a result of our RNC workshops we are working in co-operation with
the local governments of Ryde and Hunter's Hill to create a community nursery and a
native & sustainable community garden (respectively). See below for more information about our workshops.
If you are interested in getting involved in the community nursery or garden please contact
IEWF at info@iewf.org.
Invasive vine control
To raise awareness of invasive vines in gardens and bushland
of Ryde and Hunter's Hill the following
brochure has been produced in English and Mandarin as part of our on-going RNC Habitat Network project:
Do you have aliens in your yard?
園中有受外來植物侵佔嗎?
Thank you to the
Tzu Chi Foundation Australia
for their translation and involvement in this project.
These brochures have been produced using Publisher. If you can use these as the basis for developing a brochure for your
community please email us at info@iewf.org.
We will be happy to send the source document to you. We do request that if used all appropriate
acknowledgments are included. Format is A4 with 2 folds = DL brochure size.
Give a gift of native habitat plants
Give a donation and we will plant, on behalf of your gift recipient,
specially selected habitat plants which will help save the declining populations
of small birds in Sydney, Australia.
Make a donation via our
MacroNature fundraising website and we will plant specially selected
local provenance habitat plants on your behalf. We will send a Certificate to the person you nominate
stating what has been planted on their behalf. Populations of small birds such as fairy wrens, scrub wrens,
pardalotes and firetails are declining rapidly and need our help now. By restoring habitat and helping our
small birds we are restoring our natural capital.
All donations made in Australia are tax deductible
as we are a registered environmental organisation, see
Register of Environmental Organisations.
We are also signatories to the
ACFID Code of Conduct.
To find that
hidden native garden in your own backyard visit
Know your garden's natives website.
Free Restoring
Natural Capital (RNC) Workshop
Our land can never be taken back to a time before man however we can improve its function
for the benefit of man, production and nature.
The RNC Workshop, which we can either run
for you (if you are in Australia) or provide for you to use,
helps a community to find a common or collective vision for their local area
and to find affordable and achievable solutions to achieve this vision.
Visions might be cleaner water, fresher air, improved soil health, more native habitat,
more productive farm land, increased number of pollinators, a closer community ......
the possibilities are endless.
This workshop applies to urban, agricultural and natural areas and looks at the landscape as a whole.
We can provide you with the working notes/handout and PowerPoint presentation
which will allow you (or your local government or authority) to run this workshop
with your local community.
This flexible workshop explains natural capital, why natural/ecosystem capital is important,
how we lose our natural capital and
what can be done as a community
to restore our natural goods and services. This leads into
usually very interesting discussions about how local natural capital
is being lost which helps identify a common vision for your community.
Once a vision is agreed possible projects can be identified, discussed, assessed for achievability
and prioritised. A half day will get you through to identifying your vision.
The group can then go away and think about activities which may help in the restoration
and reconvene at a later date to discuss these possible projects.
We have run this workshop in Australia and Ecuador and it has been distributed
for use by communities in Australia, Ecuador, Asia, Africa, Europe and the USA mostly to schools,
environmental groups and government environmental departments. It is currently available in English and Spanish
and can be used to help launch specific local restoration projects. See also link to
Workshop page.
For more information send an email to info@iewf.org.
In May 2008 we won an Envirofund Round 9 grant
from the Australian Government which has helped us expand this program.
Our grant project is entitled "Restoring Natural Capital for Community and Landscape
Level Benefits". See our News page for more information.
For Sydney based groups or businesses we can run introductory RNC presentations or
Habitat Network presentations
which run for about 1 hour maybe over lunch or in the evening. Why not ask your local council to
arrange a presentation for you and your neighbours.
To learn a bit about us please continue .....
International Environmental Weed Foundation (IEWF) was registered
in July 2003 and is based in Sydney Australia.
We educate and facilitate projects relating to conservation, improved biodiversity, the restoration
of degraded ecosystems and restoring natural capital.
Our Web Weed Lookup and Know Your Garden's Natives projects help people discover
what may be found in their own backyard and surrounding areas.
These provide excellent resources for schools and their
environmental programs.
All of our projects are growing through community involvement.
If you want to be involved, use our resources, host an RNC Workshop or join the Habitat Network email us
at info@iewf.org.
We are the co-ordinator of the
RNC Alliance in the Pacific.
The RNC Alliance is a world-wide network of volunteers (scientists, practitioners, land managers, NGOs, government bodies
and other interested parties)
working together to restore natural capital (RNC). By working with communities
we help to identify the issues within the overall landscape and
help identify simple and inexpensive solutions to
improve the landscape function for the benefit of the people, their production systems
and the natural environment.
Our conservation project, part of a habitat link being created
from Hat Head National Park to LimeBurners Creek Nature Reserve
"For Rest"
is an example of our active dedication to the conservation of our natural capital (environment).
If you need weed photos you can copy from this site if you ask us first - please email.
We also include links to other sites who are working on similar projects. If you would like your site
included please contact IEWF at info@iewf.org.
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Restoration of Natural Capital, Crescent Head, NSW, Australia
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Thank you to Beagle Research Company Limited
for their generous support.
