Our congratulations to Ian Shaw, Red Rock Landcarer, for recently launching his guidebook, “Marine Life of northern NSW and Lord Howe Island”.
We are often impressed by the diverse talents and achievements of our wonderful volunteers outside of the amazing work they do for Landcare. We recently learnt about Ian Shaw’s, a long-term member of Red Rock Landcare, passion for local marine life and the stunning book he has produced full of colourful photographs and information titled ‘Marine Life of Northern NSW and Lord Howe Island – A guide for beach walkers, snorkelers, and scuba divers.
Ian learnt to scuba dive in 1984 and started taking underwater photos in 1985 using a basic underwater film camera. He became a member of Solitary Islands Underwater Research Group (SURG) around 1985-6 and later, a volunteer researcher with Southern Cross University’s National Marine Science Centre and Reef Life Survey around 2008.
Over the years Ian has amassed a library of photographs taken in the Solitary Islands Marine Park, many posted on the SURG website and on the Reef Life Survey website.
While many of the photos were taken while scuba diving in waters surrounding the islands off Coffs Harbour, a considerable proportion of the small, interesting crustaceans and molluscs were photographed in the numerous rockpools on headlands in the Coffs Harbour area.
In 2019 Ian embarked on a project to identify some of the lesser-known animals in the marine park using online and printed resources which eventually culminated in the pdf publication Marine Life of northern NSW and Lord Howe Island.
Ian likes to think of the work he has done as a citizen science project. Many of the identification sources include online citizen science projects such as iNaturalist, Atlas of Living Australia and Australasian Fishes. The pdf of the book is freely available as a download by contacting ian.shaw48@iinet.net.au. We highly recommend that you take a look.
If any of our other volunteers have a passion/ interest that they would like to share with CHRL please let us know so we can share your inspiration with others.
