The most ancient practice of ecological land management is still a young industry.

I’m sorry – if you’re not working in the field this might be a little technical! Basically, I designed a system for managing land for biodiversity. More simply, I wrote a lot of manuals and documentation.

When I started working in public land management, I discovered there was no standard method for mapping biodiversity, weeds and other issues. And no standard method for organising and monitoring on-ground works when protecting biodiversity. Anywhere.

Since 2010 I’ve been developing and refining a system for mapping, planning on-ground works and managing contractors and ground crews. The system also includes processes for monitoring results to feed into decisions for managing the land. A major part in getting this right was consulting with public land managers, on-ground staff and funding bodies. We trialed it and then I’d adapt it or add features for the following year. That’s why it’s taken so long.

The toolkit includes multiple manuals, documents and spreadsheets for the various users. Most recently I was employed to write tender documentation and rewrite some of the documents and manuals so contractors could be employed to do the planning side of things. Most of this toolkit is now in the public domain and groups across the state have used it. My dream is that this system will be transformed into an online system which anyone can use.