U6665234 – Audrey Cooper
Over the past few weekends, I helped with land care projects at two sites and worked on conserving bushland in two very different ways. With the Friends of Aranda Bushlands, I was helping plant native species with a group that had been working to conserve the area for 30 years, whereas the people working at the Dryandra street woodlands had only just started to work on the site and we were weeding out invasive species. However, both forms of action help to conserve native biodiversity in patches amidst an urban landscape albeit in different ways.
Aranda Bushlands
The Aranda bushlands are a community of snowy gums surrounded by grassland that has been maintained by volunteers for 30 years. Running through the middle of the site is a deep gully that is constantly eroding, due to natural weather processes, poor soil, and the constant impact of kangaroos. I joined a group that was planting native grasses in a gully, hoping to control the erosion. The grasses are fast growing, and once they establish themselves, the fibrous root systems help hold the soil together. This has the dual positive effect of helping with the erosion and increasing the native plant population.
Dryandra Street Woodland
The woodlands here are a small triangular patch surrounded by roads and houses, cut off from larger areas of bush. This was the first work party in the area (organized by Jamie Pittock of the ANU) and volunteers were surveying plants, collecting rubbish, and weeding. I was helping weed out invasive plants, mostly Cootamundra wattle and ash trees, by cutting them down and daubing the stems with pesticide. Weeds threaten the natural diversity of an environment, competing with natives for water, sunlight, space, and nutrients. The disturbed environment that we were working in provides ideal habitat for invasive species where native species are struggling, and although it will take a lot more work, we made a decent dent!
Community Participation
Globally and nationally biodiversity is one the decline at an alarming rate and realistically speaking having working parties once a month in neighborhood bushlands is not nearly close to the massive economic and policy response that is needed to stop the degradation. Despite this, it was really heartening to see how many people showed up to try and help protect the environment and local biodiversity. Landcare groups are an exemplary of direct grassroots action and although they cannot fix everything, it is good to see positive action being taken. On a small scale, the community is showing up and making a difference; collectively, it could make a large-scale change.
One really lovely experience that stood out to me was when working at the Dryandra street woodlands, one of the plant identification experts working on the site showed us a small group of what he identified as the Black Mountain Orchid. There are probably only around 2000 of them in the world, and we saw 10.
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environment.gov.au/biodiversity/invasive/weeds/weeds/why/impact.html
Biodiversity Conservation 