February 2008

25 February 2008
18 February 2008
11 February 2008
4 February 2008

25 February 2008

This week’s photos where taken at the Domestic Animal Services Depot on Mugga Lane in Symonston.

David showing how the DAS vehicles work. DAS have been announced as finalists for the National Safe Work Australia Awards in the category 2 Best Solution to an Identifed Workplace Health and Safety Issue. DAS have already won the ACT Work cover award for this category.

Why not adopt a dog?

Joe on a call out.

Domestic Animal Services is the part of TAMS that is responsible in providing a range of animal control services to the residents of the ACT.

Some of these include:

• Dog registration and infringements;
• Urban animal management advice and education;
• Animal nuisance issues;
• Management and operation of the dog pound;
• Apprehending, impounding and caring for roaming and lost dogs; and
• Dealing with vicious dogs and dog attacks.

The shelter at Mugga Lane houses stray and roaming dogs until they can be re-united with their owner or re-homed to a new owner.

To find out more information on what services DAS provides please click here.

Domestic Animal Services is always seeking people to register to assist with exercising impounded dogs in our secure exercise areas at the shelter.

So why not volunteer! The staff out at the depot would love to hear from you.

18 February 2008

This week’s photo is of Tanya at one of the many Waterwatch displays she runs throughout Canberra.

Tanya is the ACT Waterwatch Facilitator.

Tanya has been working in TAMS as the ACT Waterwatch Facilitator for over and year now and is really enjoying the role.

Waterwatch is a national community water quality monitoring network that encourages everybody to become involved in the protection and management of their waterways and catchments.

Waterwatch groups conduct biological and habitat assessments plus physical and chemical water tests. Waterwatch groups can determine if the health of their waterways and catchments are improving, declining or being maintained. Waterwatch facilitators and coordinators support the community to understand, protect and restore waterway and catchment health.

As the local Waterwatch facilitator for the ACT, Tanya is involved in supporting the community to understand, protect and restore waterway and catchment health. Tanya does this by conducting volunteer training, managing the collection of the data and passing it to the ACT Government and Commonwealth agencies such as the Bureau of Rural Science. Tanya also supports the three Waterwatch coordinators from the Ginninderra, Molonglo and Southern ACT Waterwatch groups.

Tanya gets great satisfaction from seeing people's values change from, thinking that water is there to be used up to being seen as a resource to be valued and cared for.

"Its great to be able to help the community both through training and financial assistance, commit to the projects that they themselves have come up with, but need a little help to get off the ground".

For the future, Tanya would like to see all Canberran's take a more active role in looking after their water resources. With the ongoing drought and associated water restrictions Canberran's have learned to appreciate this precious resource. "People's moral standards are changing and growing towards an environmental ethic, and I'm very proud to be a part of that."

For more information on Waterwatch you can visit the Waterwatch Australia website The ACT Waterwatch website will be launched in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out! Also you can meet Tanya at the ACT Government stand at the Royal Canberra Show on the weekend.

Why not join a Waterwatch group? Join in the fun of learning about this precious resource.

11 February 2008

This week’s photos where taken in light of the annual Multicultural Festival being held in Canberra during February.

Territory and Municipal Services values each and everyone of it's employees. One of TAMS' greatest strengths is the diversity of its people. Being able to utilise the contributions of people with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives is highly valuable.

Here are a few of those wonderful staff that make up the cultural diversity of TAMS.

From left to right: Andre (Environment Protection & Heritage), Valerio (Roads ACT), Yersheena (Community Engagement & Communications)

From left to right: Rifaat (Roads ACT), Elissa (ACT NoWaste), Sindy (Canberra Connect) 

The first week long multicultural festival was held in 1997 by the newly established ACT Office of Multicultural Affairs. It was held as a means to celebrate Australia's cultural diversity.

The National Mutilcultural Festival encourages all members of the community to share and celebrate cultural differences by enjoying arts and music, dancing, laughing, eating and drinking together.

Let get together and celebrate this unique experience!

4 February 2008

This week’s photos are of the fire tower and the views from the fire tower located in Stromlo Forest.

Peter (Parks, Conservation and Lands) at the top of the tower in Stromlo Forest

There are four fire towers in the ACT—One Tree Hill (north of Gungahlin), Kowen Forest, Mt Tennant (south of Tharwa) and Mt Coree (east of Canberra).

Kowen Forest tower is the tallest of the four towers. It stands 20 metres above the forest floor on a hill with One Tree Hill's tower being the smaller of the four due to its good positioning.

The fire towers are manned  by contracted forestry workers on days of high to extreme fire danger. They spend all their time up in the tower, watching and waiting to spot smoke. This usually occurs under extreme weather conditions of heat and wind.

Emergency Services are kept up to date with what's going on by receiving regular hourly updates from each of the towers. The information allows authorities to caluculate the risk of fires and get prepared if fire is imminent. From the towers they can identify where fires are happening, as well as the movement development of fires.

You wouldn't want to be scared of heights!