This will give you some more background to our study site and help with page 4 of your fieldwork booklet.
To learn more about the investigation site, its historical and current use to assist with planning the scientific investigation.
Explore the Sackville North area in google maps.
This will aid you in answering the questions about the study site on page 4 of your fieldwork booklet.
Explore Brewongle EEC and surrounds in this drone video.
Brewongle EEC is located on Darug country - the land of the Boorooberongal people. This land has thousands of years of custodianship and Aboriginal people have a deep connection to country and the land that supports all of us.
Country is a term Aboriginal people use to define all people, plants, animals, waters and land. We do not see ourselves separate from one another or our environment. We are all one and we are all connected on a spiritual and physical level. Our relationship to Country, our kinship and totem systems are a complexity of intertwined knowledge and respect. Just as we care for our Country through traditional land management practices such as Firestick (cultural burning), we also acknowledge and celebrate our seasonal calendar through hunting, movement and ceremony.
The landscape provides all we need in terms of plant and animal resource for food, medicine, tools etc. We never take more than we need and always ensure that what we use will remain and grow for future generations. We never farmed our lands; our yams were dug up to take only a portion of each and then replanted to continue to grow; our trees never logged and our animals not-hunted during specific times. Our landscape and all that encompasses Country, remained unchanged, forgiving and in abundance for thousands of years prior to settlement. - Erin Wilkins (Darug woman and educator)
Watch the videos below from Aunty Edna Watson and Uncle Wes Marne to gain understanding of some significant sites close to Brewongle EEC.
This photo is taken looking from Brewongle EEC south along the Hawkesbury River. We are unsure of the date, but quite different land use can be seen compared to the current view on the right. Orchards can be seen on the left bank, as well as very different riverside vegetation to today.
The bush surrounding Brewongle has been drastically altered in the last 150 years. This photo shows the old schoolhouse, with all trees removed to create a paddock. This area is now a regrown forest and where most of your fieldwork will take place.
Brewongle EEC was Sackville North Public school from 1868 until 1972. The grounds have changed a great deal in this time. School ovals, cricket nets and grassed paddocks have now been replaced with ponds, native gardens and regenerated forests.