Jaeda hit the ground running in her new role

On-Country Project Officer Jaeda Lenoy.

On-Country Project Officer Jaeda Lenoy works primarily with the Landholders Driving Change project team, funded by the Queensland Government’s Queensland Reef Water Quality Program, working mainly on Birriah Country.

Jaeda has been busy familiarising herself with:

• best practice grazing land management;
• soil erosion control and soil rehabilitation;
• monitoring and evaluation approaches and techniques that inform natural resource management (NRM) actions;
• supporting development of mapping and information resources for Traditional Owners,and
• building partnerships with Traditional Owners and other stakeholders across the Burdekin region.

… with some study in the classroom

To get a handle on best practice grazing land management, there needs to be a mix of theory and practice. Jaeda attended this three-day workshop to learn about:

• the basic business principles of running a grazing property;
• systems and software options; 
• data and record keeping (what and how), financial literacy; and
• budgeting, benchmarking and forecasting.

Following this training, Jaeda has been out in the field with the NQ Dry Tropics grazing team to learn about implementation of on-ground actions to help improve grazing practices, land condition and drought resilience.

This includes learning about different monitoring techniques used to evaluate how rangeland or pasture systems respond to management.

… some practical work in the field…

Jaeda accompanied NQ Dry Tropics Civil Works Officer Damian Flintham and Soil Conservation Officer Bernie Claussen to multiple restoration sites in the Burdekin Dry Tropic region.

She worked on sites near Gumlu and Bowen with Bernie and visited work sites around Collinsville with Damian. 

The BBB produces almost a quarter of the total fine sediment load that ends up in the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. About 65 per cent of fine sediment comes from gully erosion.

The Landscape Remediation program includes large and small-scale gully remediation approaches to improve water quality. One of the aims is to conduct assessments to determine the most appropriate on-ground solutions. 

Part of Jaeda’s role is to help monitor project sites. This builds on a workshop that was held at Mt Pleasant Station, near Bowen, earlier this year. 

The aim was to improve community capacity to implement consistent methods and tools for collecting data for NRM projects, and to support Traditional Owners to undertake monitoring.  Here’s the story from the June edition of The Grit to refresh your memory.

A component of Jaeda’s role is to engage with Traditional Owners in caring for Country planning activities.

Jaeda brings with her a broad range of work experience and strong cultural knowledge and understanding. 

She is a member and Alternate Director of the Birriah Aboriginal Corporation. She’s also involved with Indigenous adolescent health group National ROADMAP as a Queensland Female Representative, and part of its Knowledge Exchange and Analyst team.

… and supporting (and educating) colleagues

Jaeda supports a range of NQ Dry Tropics projects and has attended or been involved with multiple workshops and events including Cultural fire workshops (a story appears in this edition of The Grit), and VegCAT and photo point monitoring training.

She also led a NAIDOC Week activity with NQ Dry Tropics staff to celebrate Torres Strait Islander culture — how to weave coconut palm frond leaves.

She patiently guided colleagues step by step until they had created their very own fish and ball. 

Some staff found the intricacies of the exercise a little more challenging than others, but there was plenty of fun and laughter, and everyone got there in the end.