Odonata Academy: Reflections on completion of Saving Species Course

By Carmel Herington

As I complete the Forest Farm Action Plan for 2026 and beyond, I continue to reflect on the opportunity to have participated in the Odonata Academy Saving Species course, with gratitude.

And so here are my reflections overall on this course following completion.

In early December 2025, Brian and I returned to Mt Rothwell for the second and final retreat of the course and to present Forest Farm’s Threatened Species Action Plan.

As with the previous retreat, we were warmly welcomed and found fun and enjoyment in meeting up with the staff and our fellow student travellers of this journey. This time we helped Sam harvest seeds from native grasses and enjoyed listening to and hanging out with Gio Fitzgerald. We got to go spotlighting once again on a beautiful summer evening. And once again, Kate kindly looked after us with awesome food and this time with a course completion celebration.

Harvesting native grass seeds in a Mt Rothwell paddock

The action plan was a culmination of all the learning from the course, and we were invited to present our plans.

The presentations were so varied in content and style, and I really liked that each presenter was afforded the respect they needed to be able to talk about their own property journey in a way that best suited them. I learned so much from the presentation process, almost as much as from completing the action plan.

Here are the key takeaways and “aha” moments whilst participating in the Odonata Academy Saving Species course:

Everyone’s journey is unique

It’s not just about what everyone is doing or trying to do. It’s also about how each guardian connects to the land they are protecting, and who they are as human’s and what they can manage that forms a big part of the journey. So, there is definitely no one size fits all in terms of developing an action plan.

Everyone’s journey is a connection to land with their own needs/capacity

We can only do what we can do, within the bounds of our physical and financial capacity and the natural capital assets on the land under our respective guardianship. I am left with a sense that land management is unique and flexible and the connections between nature and the human guardian of any land is profound and special.

At the end of the day, we can only do the best that we can as guardians.

Planning is crucial and can make the journey less hectic.

Saving threatened species is a key component of Forest Farm, but not everything we do here.

Completing the Threatened Species action plan, provided the impetus to revisit and redo the overall Forest Farm action plan, providing greater clarity and focus for us on everything we do.

What a bonus!

Keep exploring to see who and what natural elements you are sharing the journey with.

With more focused and wider use of wildlife cameras, particularly across areas other than just the koala hot spots, we are already gaining a greater understanding of who we share Forest Farm with.

This was a key teaching of the course and we’re already benefitting from that and a more organised monitoring process.

I can’t wait till we can afford a full eDNA assessment across our different Forest Farm special places.   

Put in place good systems from the word go.

We’ve talked about this a lot at Forest Farm during our journey. Whilst we have some excellent systems in place for special projects (such as the carbon project, grant reporting and AfN), I’m now putting data record and overarching management record systems in place for managing every area of the property. We can already see the benefits of stopping and taking the time for a more completely planned system for everything we do.

Nature is not in a rush, and neither should you be, even though the rapidly changing climate would suggest otherwise.

This is really a personal insight, though has come to me as part of participating in the course and through reading the resource materials, listening to experts and watching the case studies.

It’s absolutely ok to be concerned about the effects of climate change and natural to be concerned. It’s there in our minds every day. And we see the evidence and experience the effects ever more frequently. At the same time, conservation work takes patience and resilience, and nature operates on vastly different timescales to our modern human world. We cannot hope to have our landscapes transformed within mere months. It takes years for trees to grow and populations of threatened species to become a thriving population. And rather than focusing on just “doing something”, if we take the time and care to look and listen, nature will instruct us. And sometimes that will lead to a faster outcome. As an example, we’ve learned that natural regen can often provide quicker results and/or certainly complementary results to a planting.

Celebrate your “wins” no matter how small.

We tend to go “finished, what’s next?”. Sometimes we celebrate, and sometimes there’s not enough time (or so we tell ourselves). I’m thinking now though that if we celebrate the completion of each planned action, no matter how small, celebration is an important component. I believe this will help us to maintain momentum and keep on going, especially during the tough times when things get really challenging, such as finding an outbreak for a major weed infestation, or a sudden influx of hares nips off the top of all your newly planted little trees!

It’s tough work, so it’s vital to celebrate, and have some fun.

The “action” in “action plan” is the most critical part.

The plans don’t get any results. Actions do.

The plans for Forest Farm are not perfect, and they’ll improve in the future as we take action and see what works and how.  

There is great value in community

One of my biggest take aways from this course and the wonderful people behind it, and the colleague co-hort participating with me, is that along with the environmental benefits provided to the whole planet, there is a need to continue to communicate the value of the work we all do in conservation, and the contribution it is making to trying to keep the planet habitable for us humans.

Spotlighting is really cool fun

Always new this, but it’s been a pretty cool reminder when we’ve been at Mt Rothwell.

So thank you Odonata.

I know I’ve said it in the previous Odonata post. However, I do believe that our connection with Odonata has taken our level of care and management of Forest Farm up a notch. We’re continuing to try to learn the lessons, and we look forward to implementing our action plan, not only for the threatened species on Forest Farm, but for all species, including the humans.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to be part of this course and engage with the wonderful Odonata community, and I hope to remain engaged with these wonderful humans for years to come. 

Finally, my personal experience is that there is enormous value and benefit in participating in the Odonata Academy Saving Species course, for anyone who is interested in managing any sized parcel of land for conservation purposes.

Early morning at Mt Rothwell