The Rescue Project: Recent Episodes
Gretchen Miller
Kind acts of environmental rescue - what drives us to do this work and how do we remain hopeful? From planting a seed, to rejuvenating a rain forest, saving a bird to a lifetime helping injured tree kangaroos - in some way, does land and animal care rescue us? Audio documentary maker and host Gretchen Miller has a fascination for the psychological reasons for caring for the natural world and for the remarkable people who do so.
How a community saved a river, cleaned up an estuary, what art reveals that the eye doesn’t see, and what is the meaning of saving just one tree? We hear from:
Susan Doran, activist: the history of the Friends of the Mongarlowe. Luise Manning, landcarer: creating a landcare group and Turning the Tide on Litter. Michael Fitzjames, artist: painting in Bullio, NSW. Margaret Storey, artist: the tiny Brown Dust seeds of her favourite bottlebrush tree.
For more stories: https://landcareaustralia.org.au/rescue/. Produced and presented by Gretchen Miller.Sound engineering by Judy Rapley. This podcast is supported by UNSW, Landcare Australia and through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
The deep interactions between humans and other creatures are captured as we spend some time at a wombat rehabilitation centre and meet the wombats themselves, hear about how a tiny kangaroo joey helped heal a family and community after unimaginable loss, and make the acquaintance of a very unusual bird for this part of the world – a southern giant petrel. We hear from:
Lyn Obern, wombat carer: Mudsey’s rescue and happy ending, June LePla OAM: Dodo’s Story. Dorothy Henderson: Why we don’t have Mondays anymore.
For more stories: https://landcareaustralia.org.au/rescue/. Produced and presented by Gretchen Miller. Sound engineering by Judy Rapley. This podcast is supported by UNSW, Landcare Australia and through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
Home Ground can mean a place you live, a place you’ve developed a relationship with over time, or further ranging territory you travel across in your day to day. Here we explore three stories of caring for the land. We’re travelling to farm country near Tumut, NSW, then across the Blue Mountains to a hidden valley and then to the Brisbane suburbs, as a simple pile of grass clippings threaten a small patch of local bush. We hear from:
Louise Freckelton, sheep farmer: Carex and the Ducklings. Kathryn Read, tree planter: On Planting a Forest. Jill Bauer, landcarer: Whacking Weeds Rescues Creek!
For more stories: https://landcareaustralia.org.au/rescue/. Produced and presented by Gretchen Miller. Sound engineering by Judy Rapley. This podcast is supported by UNSW, Landcare Australia and through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
We’re in the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland. This documentary feature immerses you in the wettest part of the driest continent on earth, a tiny patch of emerald green. A World Heritage area. We’re walking through the landscape with people collaborating on interconnected projects – looking after tree kangaroos whose fragmented forest habitat needs re connecting, finding seeds for propagation, replanting great tracts of rain forest, and protecting the whole from a tiny but deadly invader – the yellow crazy ant.How are people doing this work and what drives them? How do they remain hopeful and passionate in the context of global climate disruption? For more stories: https://landcareaustralia.org.au/rescue/.
We hear from: the director of the Tree Roo Rescue and Conservation Centre, Dr Karen Coombes Traditional owner and countryman of the tree kangaroo, Ernie Raymont Microbiologist and as the wet tropics representative for the Queensland Water and Land Carers, Rhonda Sorensen Farmer, Elizabeth Carcary Djabugai ranger training program,Jimmy Richards and Toby Graham The first Yellow Crazy Ant Community Taskforce Coordinator in Kuranda, Mikaela Jacoby Former professor of Earth and Environmental science at James Cook University, Peter Valentine, President of the Trees for the Evelyn and Atherton Tablelands Nursery, Angela McCaffrey Project coordinator for Kuranda Envirocare, Sylvia Conway Seed collector, Helen McConnell. Produced and presented by Gretchen Miller. Sound engineering by Judy Rapley.
This podcast is supported by UNSW, Landcare Australia and through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
Grateful thanks to the people of the Tablelands, to QWALC, Landcare Australia, James Link, Rohan Anteo and Rhonda Sorensen, and to land and animal carers everywhere. Grateful thanks also due to Judy Motion, Paul Brown, Tema Milstein, and Matt Kearnes from the University of NSW. Special thanks are to Judy Rapley for her meticulous sound engineering work, that always goes above and beyond. Credit due to the Xeno Canto website for its beautiful, creative commons-licenced bird recordings. Recordings from: Patrik Åberg; Fernand Deroussen; Phil Gregory; Krzysztof Deoniziak; Marc Anderson .