In between reviewing over 130 applicants for our recent Junior Office Assistant position (!), I thought I’d chuck in a quick blog post about one of our big projects for 2009.

One of the big projects we are already working on for 2009 is for the South West Australia Ecoregion Initiative (SWAEI).  We’re actually working on two projects here but we’ll wrap them together into one big announcement.

SWAEI applied for federal funding under the Open Grants scheme and received that funding for the creation of a systematic conservation plan for the SWAEI region.  Gaia Resources was asked to provide GIS expertise and local staff in Western Australia to help the SWAEI group to implement the systematic conservation planning and associated data processing projects.

To me, this is important stuff.  I know that “on the ground” conservation work in the south-west of Australia is really good work – I grew up in the (far?) south-west, and participated in a few programs myself while growing up.  In more recent times, I started to wonder if these efforts, which can be patchy and piecemeal, would lead to a good outcome for the whole region.

This project with SWAEI means that Gaia Resources can help conservation activities across the region.  The project is not going tell people to stop conserving things that aren’t in the regional focus (far from it!) but it will provide a  guide as to where it would be “best” to focus efforts – and it will be backed up with a lot of data, and a lot of leading scientific tools, researchers and, well, just good science!  The chance to work with the team on SWAEI means we’ll be working with some well respected scientists, conservationists and a bunch of very enthusiastic people, which is rewarding in itself.

I for one can’t wait to get stuck into it and help SWAEI make a difference to a part of the world I still think of as home!  Look out for more on SWAEI in the coming months or for more on SWAEI, visit: http://swaecoregion.org/index.asp.

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