Inland Astro-Trail Discussion Paper: seeking NACAA members’ ideas

Presenter(s): Dr Merrill Findlay

Affiliation(s): Big Skies Collaboration, and Research Fellow (Hon), Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, University of Canberra

Session details: Sunday, 2020-04-12 06:00:00, SUN

Abstract

At the 2018 NACAA I spoke about our Big Skies Collaboration which seeks to catalyze new opportunities for communities in southeastern Australia's rural Inland and introduced NACAA members to the Inland Astro-Trail (IAT) concept. Since then, our Collaboration has made significant progress. We’ve been working with Destination NSW (the State Government's tourism arm) to develop a Dark Skies Experience Masterplan to promote astro-tourism in Inland NSW, for example, and now look forward to the Masterplan’s release and implementation. But the IAT is about much more than astro-tourism. It is also about astro-heritage, STEAM education outreach, sustainable economic and cultural development, drought relief, and capacity building in inland communities, for example. I am exploring these themes in my forthcoming Discussion Paper on the potential of the IAT and will briefly outline them in my NACAA presentation. I will also invite Convention participants to contribute their own ideas and comments which I'll incorporate (with attributions) into the Discussion Paper’s final draft. On completion, the IAT Discussion Paper will be widely circulated and presented to State and Federal Members of Parliament as part of our campaign to seek financial and in-kind support for major IAT projects. For more information, please see https://bigskiescollaboration.wordpress.com

Biography

Dr Merrill Findlay is a writer, scholar, cultural development practitioner and co-founder of the Big Skies Collaboration and IAT concept. She is based in Forbes, NSW. For more information, please see merrillfindlay.com