Harvey Senior High School students collaborate with River Restoration Taskforce to help heal Harvey River

Taking the health of the Harvey River into their own hands, students from the town’s high school are helping a not-for-profit plant new homes for the ecosystem’s critters. In collaboration with the Harvey River Restoration Taskforce, Harvey Senior High School students have turned their thumbs green after a series of excursions and greenhouse work to grow and later plant native vegetation along the Harvey River. HRRTF river care officer Jordan Garbellini-Adams — who has been teaching the students about the river — said the initiative was part of HRRTF’s broader Marron More than a Meal project. “It’s all about protecting and enhancing habitat in the Harvey River to sustain healthy communities, and that’s plant, animal and people communities,” she said. “If you have a healthy river then you have healthy critters like the marron, they are a flagship species so if everything else is functioning they will be in the system.” Learning about the river’s organisms, the habitat they live in and the importance of the Harvey River to the wider community has all been part of the students’ experience, which HSHS engagement program teacher Litza Reed said has been a great opportunity for the students. “Some of the students have really embraced it, and there’s a number of new facets we’re hoping to bring to the outdoor horticulture program,” she said. Engaging with students from HSHS is the start of a wider community engagement program for the HRRTF according to Ms Garbellini-Adams who hopes the program will encourage “custodianship” over the river as it has done with the students. “We will introduce Harvey River Radio later in the year to discuss the importance of a healthy river with the community,” she said. “The idea is for (students) to have that sense of custodianship and maybe if they have kids in the future and they’re walking along that new path they will see the critters, hear the frogs and think ‘maybe they are living in what we planted’.”