Dr Timothy Cadman has successfully secured the protection of local hardwood areas once primed for logging, including native forest belonging to the proposed Great Koala National Park along the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. Dr Cadman has employed geographical information systems (GIS) for data mapping and analysis of the local environment, providing evidence of native forest in areas set to be clear-felled. Dr Cadman is now translating this technical knowledge across user-friendly systems such as Google Earth, providing voluntary training and support to concerned communities on the fringes of the forest. “I’ve developed a citizen science training course, having trained people on all the spatial tasks such as how to import historical images and draw polygons, how to put those polygons on their iPad for mapping, and then go into the bush and find the trees or the stumps,” he said.
