Members may also like to consider requesting a workshop on advanced ArcGIS/Arcview, or perhaps MapInfo given the responses to last years workshop and pre-workshop member survey where a number of members ventured interest in doing more advanced topics such as splining. Again, its matter of demand to match supply, and this also depends on which GIS platform yr using. Feel free to email me at membership@ecansw.org.au for ideas/interest in this or other workshop topics.

Furthermore, there is a very good chance of Gwen Harden being interested in running a workshop in rainforest plant ID (assumedly trees and shrubs given the revised book out now as advised by ECA Information email recently), most likely being held in the Coffs Botannical Gardens in the subtropical paradise that is Coffs Harbour (what a great excuse for a holiday you can claim as a tax writeoff). Please register yr interest with me ASAP so we can start scratching up some detail such as booking venue, host, etc.

And dont forget - the sedge workshop is happening in Sydney first weekend in May. REGISTER NOW! Thanks to Liz Norris for her time and extensive effort in organising this workshop for ECA members and guests.

One workshop that I would like to see the ECA run in 2009 is "Techniques for Surveying & Identifying Important Tree Hollows".

Most forest and woodland areas in NSW would be suitable for such a workshop, but somewhere along the south coast or on the Central Tablelands would be my preference. Any suggestions as to who could run such a workshop (besides the obvious choices of Phil Gibbons or David Lindenmayer) and venue?

Interestingly, last year I conducted two sets of intensive fauna surveys in an area of moist woodland which had a very high density of tree hollows. There had been no fire through the woodland for at least 4 decades and most of the hollows seemed to have formed from wood rot rather than from fires, storm damage or termite attack. Much of the woodland was overgrown with dense thickets of bracken fern which, in places reached 1.5 to 2.0 metres in height. The edges of the woodland were also quite densely vegetated with weeds. Consequently, it was physically difficult to walk through large areas of this woodland. Despite the preponderence of suitably-sized and placed hollows, and an intensive fauna trapping effort, I found little evidence of hollow-dependent mammals, other than microbats, in the woodland. This surprised me because the woodland was quite a large area (over 300 ha) and part of a larger wildlife corridor. I can only suggest that the habitat had been modified to such an extent that local populations of some species of fauna had become extinct. There were also foxes, feral cats, rabbits, hares, feral pigs and wild dogs in the woodland, which would have accounted for the disappearance of some native mammal species.

Therefore, if a workshop on tree hollows was run by the ECA, I would like to see some discussion/demonstration of the variables that should be investigated (in addition to the densities, type, size, location and orientation of tree hollows) when assessing the potential importance of habitat for hollow-dependent fauna.

I forgot to mention in the previous message that if we don't get any suggestions for 2009 workshops, it is likely that the ECA Council will assume that people are not interested in having them, and so won't organise any. This would be unfortunate because previous workshops have been well attended, suggesting that there is a call for them.

The ECA Council is looking for suggestions for workshop topics and venues for 2009. All suggestions should be made on this discussion forum.

The following ECA workshops have been confirmed for 2008:

1. Sedge Identification Workshop at Sydney Olympic Park, 3-4 May 2008.

2. Vertebrate survey techniques at UNSW Field Station, Smiths Lake, 4-5 October 2008.

We are also trying to organise a 3rd workshop for this year, which we hope will be around July 2008. This workshop will either be on Vegetation Management Plans or identification of rainforest plants.

You can contact Amy Rowles at admin@ecansw.org.au or myself for information on any of these workshops.

Past and present workshops have been/are in Sydney or on the north/mid-north coast. We would particularly like to hear suggestions for workshop topics and venues for the south coast or inland centres of NSW.