Citizen Science Webinar

This is an edited webinar recording from the 2nd September 2024 with Dr Michael Mulvaney from NatureMapr.

Michael has been involved with NatureMapr since its inception 13 years ago, when his curiosity about native plants and the environment led him to start recording species that were new to him.

Have you ever wondered what that plant is in your grassland? Had difficulty distinguishing a ‘weed’ from a native plant? Are you bewildered by technology and the myriad of “apps” available?

Michael will offer his expertise on what to record, when and how often. He will talk about his experience using NatureMapr for threatened species monitoring and discuss guidelines on how to collect high quality data as a citizen scientist.

About our speaker

Michael Mulvaney has spent 40 years as a Landcarer on Red Hill Nature reserve, which is the wooded ridge you see framing Parliament House on the nightly news, and Michael considers as being the center of the universe. He completed a PhD on why certain garden plants become weeds and others don’t and was part of the group that developed the Australian Weed Risk Assessment System. He spent 35 years working for the Commonwealth, NSW and ACT governments providing advice on development and planning proposal that may impact wildlife.

To get a better context for the advice he was providing, he co-founded NatureMapr, a Citizen Science website that coordinates local collection of wildlife information and helps direct local on-ground management. He has supervised citizen science projects that used both NatureMapr and iNaturalist and produced papers on Gang-gang Cockatoo diet and Gang-gang nesting ecology. He has studied the distribution of rare Small Ant-blue Butterfly breeding sites, orchid presence and diversity in relation to prescribed burning and Canberra’s insect pollinators and how to encourage them in restoration/regeneration projects.

Landcare NSW and the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust are working together to raise awareness and support private land conservation efforts across the state. Thanks to Michael for donating his time to speak at this webinar.

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we work, learn, celebrate and live, and pay respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and their elders, past, present and future. We value their knowledge, insights and connection to the rivers, creeks, wetlands and billabongs we love and care about.