For more than three decades, Graeme Sawyer has been one of the Northern Territory’s most recognisable voices in citizen science and environmental education.
A former Lord Mayor of Darwin and founder of Frogwatch NT, Graeme has spent much of his life connecting people — especially children — with the wildlife of the Top End. But alongside the wonder of frogs, wetlands and night walks has come another story: the slow devastation caused by invasive cane toads.
Building Frogwatch Through Citizen Science
Graeme’s path into frog conservation began while developing one of Australia’s earliest multimedia wildlife databases alongside colleague Ian Morris.
The project was initially designed for schools and Indigenous communities, helping children identify native animals through photographs and recordings. What emerged was something much larger.
“We didn’t know much about frogs or their distribution or anything else in the NT at that point in time,” Graeme said.
Frogwatch NT soon evolved into a community-driven citizen science initiative aimed at documenting frog populations and monitoring the spread of chytrid fungus, a deadly amphibian disease threatening frogs globally.
The program quickly demonstrated the power of community observation.
One evening, university student Jeanne Young arrived at a Frogwatch session carrying a recording of an unidentified frog call. Days later, the group tracked the sound to the Howard River floodplains and discovered what would become the Howard River Toadlet (Uperoleia daviesae), a species previously unknown to science.
For Graeme, the discovery reinforced the importance of public participation in environmental research.
“It showed me again the value of citizen science — getting the eyes and ears of people tuned into their local environments,” he said.
More Information
https://watergum.org/tadpoletrapping/
https://biodiversitywatch.org.au/?action=main.default&mobile=false
https://www.facebook.com/frogwatch.nthaustralia
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