SLA Thursday Forum: HiCUB-Learning from New England’s Biggest Environmental Project

The High Country Urban Biodiversity Project, which recently finished, was the biggest environmental project ever run in New England, and you can hear all about it at the next Sustainable Living (SLA) Thursday Forum on 7^th June.

HiCUB was a unique partnership between our four local governments: Armidale, Uralla, Walcha and Guyra, and Southern New England Landcare and community groups. The project resulted in major erosion control and revegetation works in creeks in each town as well as bush regeneration in important remnants. Perhaps the biggest outcome of HiCUB has been the increase in capacity of these communities to understand and manage biodiversity in urban areas.

Sustainable Living Armidale is delighted  to bring members of the HiCUB team to their June Forum so that people can find out about the project and what it achieved with $2 million of funding from the NSW Environmental Trust. Laszlo Szabo will screen his 38 minute documentary of the HiCUB project, featuring footage and interviews from the last year. David Carr, the Project Director, will talk about how HiCUB implemented the vision of the many community members who set up the project in 2008.

An open forum will follow, where members of the public will be able to discuss the lessons from the last 4 years of HiCUB; from planning through to implementation.

A follow-up project is in development, called New England Regeneration, which aims to bring regional individuals and organisations together to work on the common ground between agriculture and conservation. This project aims to develop agricultural ecosystems across the entire New England region which support livelihoods while preserving and enhancing our wildlife, flora and the ecosystems that support them. A brief outline of this vision will be given on the night.

The SLA Thursday Forum: “HiCUB: Learning from New England’s biggest environmental project” will be held on June 7th at 7pm at Kent House, (opposite Central Park). Everyone is welcome, light refreshments to follow, gold coin donation appreciated.