Wandering with purpose: The pivotal plant work of 'The Random Meanderers'

Far from describing aimless wanderers, the 'random meander' is a common method used to survey and catalogue plants and animals in a rough, back-and-forth path through an area.

It's through this method that a group of women in the Blue Mountains have filled the state's biodiversity atlas with data that can inform conservation for years to come.

"People think it's a bit of a joke, they think it's because we just roam around with no purpose, we're just a bunch of older women now... but it's actually not the case. It's a proper, ecological survey technique," said Margaret Baker, coordinator of the Meanderers.

The women have even directly informed on some projects in the Mountains, including a bird study at Katoomba airfield and - more recently - a survey referred to by National Parks and Wildlife Service in their upgrades to Perrys Lookdown.

Ms Baker said the Meanderers began with nothing more than some eager Environmental Studies students she was teaching at TAFE in 2012.

"It seemed to be this group of women, who were mostly but not all retired, who were really keen to stay together, and to continue to walk the Mountains," she said.

Forming a tight-knit crew after leaving TAFE, the women began group bush walks in which they scientifically identify, record and catalogue the nature they encounter.

The group's findings are then submitted to the BioNet Atlas, a State government database that can be used by everyone from developers to environmental consultants.

Ms Baker said the key targets to study were Crown Land with potential to be developed, private property where owners wanted to learn more about their land, and the less documented edges of the National Park.

"We saw that there were big gaps. There were popular areas where there was a lot of information available, but there was a lot of land that basically had never had a survey, and there was very little knowledge about them," she said.

The women also visit previously surveyed sites which have been affected by bushfires - such as Perrys Lookdown, where they recently provided data to NPWS.

After tallying plant species, compiling plants suggested for regeneration, and identifying 'special' plants such as terrestrial orchids and waratahs, Ms Baker said it was a special moment for some Meanderers to revisit the upgraded site and see their knowledge in action.

"There are some who will look at those pages [of data] and say 'look, this is really great'... but I do know that there are others, particularly who are not into the technology, who went back and had a look at Perry's Lookdown, and they were really pleased that we were able to use our knowledge to contribute to the work that was done there," she said.

"The staff were very determined to do what they could... and we think they've done a good job."

Looking back on the group's history of more than a decade, Ms Baker said she not only thinks the members have made a great contribution to biodiversity knowledge, but have been important social connections for each other all the while.

"It is a really important social activity. Because the girls have been there together and know each other very well, they're very supportive of each other," she said.

"For older people who really like the bush but don't want to go on long, hard bushwalks, this filled in an important gap, I think. They didn't just want to be sitting doing craft work... but there isn't in fact very much for people who just want to do these kinds of fringe-of-science activities."

The Random Meanderers use the iNaturalist app to record their data, which anyone can use to contribute data about their local environment. For more information visit: https://www.inaturalist.org/