Following on from our 2021 WA Landcare Network Members Survey released earlier in the year, WALN is providing a helping hand to landcare groups to get their landcare data collection in order.

In June we ran an online data collection discussion that told us you are all enthusiastic about collecting environmental data and want to learn more about software and strategies to document your local patch.  We are working on supporting those requests.

For now we have developed a Sample Data Collection Template which we hope will help groups collect the data they want. It will also assist you to contribute to the broader landcare story when the next WA Landcare Network Members Survey comes around in 2023.

Our biennial WA Landcare Network Members Survey provides a summary of the landcare effort in WA. It’s a summary we can all provide to decision makers and funding organisations. It shows the extent of landcare work, the commitment of the community to landcare and is a critical part of the story needed to secure funding and resources to allow us to continue our important landcare work.  It particularly helps WALN to advocate for all landcare and coastcare groups across the State.

Our Sample Data Collection Template is designed for collecting Volunteer, Event and Output data.   We know the template wont suit everyone but it can be adjusted to suit your purposes. Particularly, please tailor the Output Worksheet to your needs, deleting columns that aren’t relevant to your work.  We hope it will enable you capture a bit more information that we need, including volunteer work hours. If you would like assistance completing or setting up your data collection template or have any feedback, please email kylie.payne@landcarewa.org.au.

WALN is working on a repository for sharing data collection instruments and methodologies, so please email through any templates, apps or methods you use which you would be happy to share and might be helpful for other groups to kylie.payne@landcarewa.org.au.

Happy Data Collecting!