The project has won a range of awards, and now it’s being recognised in a way few research projects achieve – as part of an Australia Post stamp series celebrating citizen science.

Co-led by ecologist Dr Emilie Ens (pictured) from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Cherry Wulumirr Daniels, an Elder of the Ngandi people from remote south-eastern Arnhem Land, and the Yugul Mangi Rangers, South East Arnhem Land Indigenous Protected Area, the research team worked with the community and Indigenous Rangers to better manage new threats facing their country—feral animals, weeds, climate change and altered fire regimes.

The project blends conventional ecological research with traditional knowledge and ways of seeing country. Mrs Daniels (now deceased) explained, “It’s a responsibility to look after those things.”

“We are not doing it for ourselves. We are doing this for our country and for our people and for the sake of our culture, keeping our culture alive and strong.”

The project has brought people from the remote Aboriginal community of Ngukurr back to country, and through the Ngukurr School’s involvement with the research, produced the community’s first university students in over 30 years, engaging students to access higher education opportunities at Macquarie University through a two-way, on-Country, Pre-University Skills course.

Emilie says, “We involve the school kids through holiday camps and teach the senior classes about plants and animals. Kids love technology. So we get them to do video recording and use tablets, computers and cameras.”

They use motion sensor camera traps, cage traps, pitfall traps, Elliott traps and funnel traps to find small mammals, reptiles and frogs, and might also take tissue samples for DNA analysis. “All the field research is linked to Macquarie University and we publish journal articles and have made videos for our YouTube channel,” Emilie says.

More than 300 community members have been directly involved in the research and the project has indirectly reached every person in the community of 1,000. It has also brought over one million dollars of scientific research funding into the community.

The research team is also helping to maintain endangered traditional languages, producing a 143-page community flora and fauna field guide with the Ngukurr Language Centre. The guide lists 275 species names in 10 languages—eight local Aboriginal languages and the species’ English common and scientific names.

“This project is not just about citizens collecting data, but about being integrally involved in all stages of biodiversity research to empower community decision-making about remote land management,” Emilie says.

“We are trying to reach as many people as possible to give them an opportunity to do hands-on scientific research. If people learn more about Country and connect more with it, then they can understand some of the threats and want to be involved in its management.”

She says being on a stamp is a great – and unexpected – honour for everyone involved. And her grandfather is particularly thrilled – he’s a stamp collector.

Dr Richard Flood, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, was recently recognised for 50 years of service at Macquarie University. Here he reflects on those very early Macquarie days, and how far we’ve come.

I came to Macquarie early 1968 as a tutor/demonstrator when the University was a construction site.

The western wing of 12WW stood proudly close to the bitumen of the old intersection of Waterloo and Balaclava Roads and an old red phone booth.  Much of the rest of campus was dotted with the houses of the market gardener families who had once owned the land. 

In a relatively few years the central part of campus changed to look much as it does today. Under the oversight of the late Wally Abraham (of “Wally’s Walk”) – who was the Architect Planner – the ring roads were constructed and most of the now beautiful trees were planted.

1967 was a year that might have been considered to be the worst possible year to have the first intake of students at Macquarie. The year five Leaving Certificate had changed to the year six Higher School Certificate in 1966, so in theory there were no new school graduates. But the student numbers were good with most, I suspect, having graduated from school a few years earlier.

 Many of the Executive and academics at Macquarie in those early years wanted to get away from many of the practices of the older universities. It probably fair to say the older universities have, over the years, changed some of their ways to be more like Macquarie and that, with age, Macquarie has moved back to be more like the older universities.

For me being an academic at Macquarie has been very enjoyable, in large part due to the kindness of the other staff and the niceness of the students.

To all who have been so nice and helpful to me over the years I say thank you very much.

~ Dick Flood

Here, Sophia Aharonovich, PhD student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, talks about her time on board an international drilling vessel, collecting samples that reconstruct past climates to inform future climate modelling.

I find the correlation between human evolution and climate change fascinating; by using small pieces of information preserved in sediments, we can recreate a full picture of the environment thousands of years ago.

After studying pollen grains and phytoliths (silica remains of plants) in soil during my Masters in Archaeology at the University of Haifa, Israel, I discovered that it is possible to reconstruct past climates using organic molecules preserved in soils and rocks, going back not thousands, but millions of years.

One of my favourite parts of my PhD research at Macquarie University was the 60 days I spent on-board the JOIDES Resolution, an international scientific drilling vessel, for the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition in the Arabian Sea last year. The JOIDES Resolution has a fully equipped coring facility and laboratory.

I was on-board as an organic geochemist and was the only Australian among 30 scientists from a mix of languages and cultures and at different career stages. We all had something in common – a passion for science. We worked hard during our 12 hour shifts and had a lot of fun in between. Some of us saw 60 sunrises over the Indian Ocean and some saw 60 sunsets. We left the JOIDES Resolution as good friends and research collaborators. We collected samples in seas 3.5 km deep and drilled down over one kilometre into sediments and rocks that were dated to more than 13 million years old. We discovered signs of correlation between uplift of the Himalayas and changes in the summer monsoon intensity, a weather period that currently impacts 70 per cent of the world’s population.

With a better understanding of past climate changes and human influence on the planet, we can predict future climate changes. In my Macquarie Minds session, we’ll explore the geological evidence of past climate change episodes, their correlation with global patterns of extinction and the rise and fall of civilisations, as well as impacts on human technological evolution.

Register for Sophia’s session Is Climate Change Really Much Ado About Nothing?, as part of the Macquarie Minds Showcase 13-14 December 2016. Dr Kira Westaway, Professor Simon George and Professor Michael Gillings are also participating.