[pitoufsd]

Thought it might be a good idea to create a thread for Scribblies to post about their Landcare and other related activities. Not just "official" Landcare stuff, any activities that help the environment (thinks of jj and her "watsonia war").

[pitoufsd]

Been a bit quiet of late here, a bit of weed-spraying when opportunity presents is about all I've managed on a practical level.

Have been doing some behind the scenes work trying to get local high-school kids involved in our Coastcare group, and it's finally falling into place (liaising with school and teachers, getting police check).

Will become a regular addition to school sports activities (don't ask me why it comes under "sport" though, I'm just glad to have some extra help). It will be a regular once a week activity kicking off next term and hopefully may also end up bringing us a few young volunteers willing to come along at other times (and hopefully bring their parents too).

Now to get down to planning of activities. First week will just be an introduction to the site and some of the flora (native and exotic). Second week I'm hoping to do some planting out of areas where weed control has proven successful (don't want to turn 'em off by weeding straight up LOL).

[Ingeborga]

a bit quiet ? lol you've been busy getting important stuff organised.
i'd guess it comes under sport because it is a physical outside activity. probably easier to organise on the admin side as sports activities off campus are part of the curriculum.

[pitoufsd]

It would be really interesting to see what the end results of this project and other ones like it are in a decade or three.

http://www.landcareonline.com.au/new...rse-plantings/

[pitoufsd]

Helix made mention in another thread about an updating of the Weeds of National Significance (WoNS) list, with the inclusion of another twelve species (now 32 in total)

More info about the updates etc. can be found on the WoNS site.

[pitoufsd]

Since so much of the work Landcare volunteers carry out is to do with weed control, thought it might be good to supply a couple of links to useful info. I'm in NSW and so tend to look at sites with some regional significance. Perhaps others could post info links for their state/territory?

This page contains information on general weed-related stuff.

[pitoufsd]

The page from Monash Uni is very good I'm discovering, plenty of neat links and even a job board.

http://weedsnews.monash.edu.au/traction

Enough there to keep me occupied for quite some time.

[pitoufsd]

This came from The Weed Thread and seems apt to pop in here
Originally Posted by occidentalis
Don't suppose you have been involved with this? Seems like they have some interesting projects going on. Including breeding up insect pathogens for weed control, hope they are getting good advice. No personal involvement (no ankle-biters or kiddiewinks of my own). I am however working with a bloke from local council/catchment management authority and a couple of people from local high school in order to get a group of students helping out with Coastcare activities. Project was planned to kick off in a couple of weeks' time, but a spanner got thrown in the works and we won't be commencing until beginning of term 3.

I came across the Weed Warrior stuff whilst planning activities suited to young folk, stuff with a bit of entertainment value to get 'em interested. When I think back to being that age, time spent simply pulling weeds wouldn't have been too exciting. Idea is to inspire them so hopefully they get involved as volunteers outside school hours, or at least introduce them to the idea of Landcare so that perhaps they get involved in future.

Another school in the shire has started their own student Landcare group and it seems very popular and working well so far. Idea is to eventually get most/all high schools around here involved (bit tricky with primary aged kids though, our Landcare group only carries public liability insurance for people 10-90 years of age, not sure whether primary schools have their students covered under some other policy.

As for the insect breeding, I know a lot of schools have been involved in raising Bridal Creeper Leafhoppers for release. That's one activity I have in mind for stuff to do on our Coastcare site.

Another site which may interest people wanting to get kids involved is Junior Landcare (I need to start reading a lot more 'bout this stuff myself now).

[pitoufsd]

Very nice little audio item I listened to last night (also transcript available at link).

Mateship with Nature

Author Carrie Tiffany from Melbourne has been working with the Landcare movement, which just had its 25th anniversary, for most of that time. Today she talks about her experiences with the Australian landscape and the people she has met during her work.


http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...nature/3898418

[pitoufsd]

Down one end of the site we look after is a car park and picnic/bbq area. Last year I noticed how much sand was being wash out of the lake and how the bank was at risk of eroding. I mentioned it to a few people at the time but it wasn't seen as an issue .

Then we got a couple of big seas and high tides in October and November last year and the retaining wall started to go. The missing rails are somewhere out in the Pacific now.



I got onto council and suggested they should try to make some temporary repairs before Christmas because this area gets visited and used a lot at that time. To council's credit they did put a fix in place within a week of my request, but sadly they tried to skimp and not do thing properly (like using rock for fill and to create barriers). I figured the fix would only last a few months and it seems I was right.

Took this next pic 6 days ago and you can see what's occured (photos look a bit different because the clump of Acacia in the background has been removed). Every section of railing you can see has been washed away now.




I got back in touch with local councillor last Tuesday and an hour after speaking to him he went down to look for himself. He saw the damage and got straight onto a work team. So far all they have done is fence area off from the public, but hopefully in next week or so they fix things properly. One thing I'm not happy about is they brought in soil from off-site backfill a large area (can't really be seen in this photo, it's in background behind that blue post (sign for Marine Park). Several tons of soil has ended up in lake or out to sea. Next pic shows it more clearly (I took this yesterday)



Note the lean on what's left of the wall. A decent high tide next moon and I reckon the lot will go. Bit annoying trying to find out exactly who should pay the cost of repairs. Wall was built around time Marine Park came into being, but speaking with a bloke from Marine Park Authority I was told it was council responsibility as the MPA only have control to high-water mark. Now there is a new high-water mark, I wonder if MPA will accept it's now their problem? I don't care who's responsibility it is, just fix it and fix it properly. All these temporary measures cost $$$ and don't achieve much. Do it right first time and it would actually work out cheaper IMHO.

[Wvq9InTM]

The removal of the Acacia will only make the problem worse. They should have planted more of them years past.

We cannot afford to conccrete the whole coastline.

[chechokancho]

That is a great series of photos you have Woolly. Explains the situation well (especially to councillors!).

What is the reason that area is now actively eroding? Too much sediment in the lake? Rising sea level? Removal or original tree/veg from the lake edge? Maybe a combination of factors? Fixing/addressing the reasons should go hand-in-hand with stabilising the bank. Big $$ to keep the tide at bay...

On the banks of the Swan River there is bank erosion, I think due to increased boat traffic (making erosive waves) and removal of trees/other bank stabilising vegetation. Trees and poles are regularly seen washed into the river (just like your pics).

Looking forward to positive updates!

[pitoufsd]

The removal of the Acacia will only make the problem worse. They should have planted more of them years past.

We cannot afford to conccrete the whole coastline.

I didn't know the Acacia was going to be removed, I was planning to prune it back hard and clean out the Kikuyu growing up through it, council work crew did that at the same time they removed an old rusted bbq. The Acacia actually doesn't stop the erosion problem much at all because the roots aren't deep enough. Acacia aplenty on my local beach very close to where those pics were taken. The beach is actually two section, a large and a small that are separated by a small rocky headland. The dunes on the smaller beach have been massively eroded for the entire length, despite a dense covering of Acacia (I'll post some pics later, very disturbing sight).

I didn't mention concrete, just a low rock wall for about 30-50m total length (hardly a whole coastline). Since it already has what's left of those ugly treated pine posts in exactly the same spot, I think my idea makes far more sense.

[pitoufsd]

What is the reason that area is now actively eroding? Too much sediment in the lake? Rising sea level? Removal or original tree/veg from the lake edge? Maybe a combination of factors? Fixing/addressing the reasons should go hand-in-hand with stabilising the bank. Big $$ to keep the tide at bay...

I think it's pretty natural Podzol, the problem being that for nearly all the time I've been here the lake has spent a lot of time closed and wind-borne sand built up along a section of sand-flats where that wall is. Since the breaking of the drought and a massive rain event that flooded my place and opened and flushed the lake, we've been getting enough regular rainfall to keep lake open.

The retaining wall was built during the middle 2000s and I guess the planners/designers didn't take into account that the nice high pile of sand wouldn't stay there forever.

I did get a laugh when I first raised idea that council or someone should fix it, was suggested that our Coastcare group deal with it. As if we have back-hoes and tippers and all the $$$ required just sitting around here waiting to be used...

[Wvq9InTM]

I didn't know the Acacia was going to be removed, I was planning to prune it back hard and clean out the Kikuyu growing up through it, council work crew did that at the same time they removed an old rusted bbq. The Acacia actually doesn't stop the erosion problem much at all because the roots aren't deep enough. Acacia aplenty on my local beach very close to where those pics were taken. The beach is actually two section, a large and a small that are separated by a small rocky headland. The dunes on the smaller beach have been massively eroded for the entire length, despite a dense covering of Acacia (I'll post some pics later, very disturbing sight).

I didn't mention concrete, just a low rock wall for about 30-50m total length (hardly a whole coastline). Since it already has what's left of those ugly treated pine posts in exactly the same spot, I think my idea makes far more sense.

My concrete comment wasn't meant to make sense.. It was more to imply that our entire coastline will change as the sea level rises. Any depth of root coverage will help retain the bank, even the kikuyu was better than chucking loose rocks and dirt there.

A decent rock wall would be a good idea if the council could dump rocks big enough.

[pitoufsd]

Didn't need to been Einstein to figure out the retaining wall pictured in my earlier posts would cop more damage on the next decent high tide. Last night we got one of the biggest tides this year, on top of a 6m swell generated by an East Coast Low. I knew the wall wouldn't hold up and I was right.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7237/7...3733c04d_z.jpg


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8160/7...7328afe0_z.jpg



Sad thing is I drew attention to all these problems back in November last year, but apart from the orange fencing and some cosmetic stuff, no repairs were made.

Screw it, I'm sending these pics and some others to council and Marine Parks Authority today and also going to tell them time is up. The lake is part of the Batemans Marine Park, but they won't take responsibility. Council has no money, so they say. The lake is home to an Endangered Ecological Community (EEC) called Coastal Saltmarsh and there are big fines for anyone caught damaging such an area. Allowing a wall to collapse and fill the lake with treated pine posts and artificial fill from a carpark equates to damage IMHO.

A friend of mine is very high up list of important people working for NSW EPA and I think I'll chat with him next weekend when he's here to see if a word from him might get this stuff taken seriously.

[pitoufsd]

Work has been happening to fix the problems regarding collapsed then removed retaining wall. Some pics from a few weeks ago





That's going to do SFA to stop erosion long-term, but at least the lake and ocean won't be filled with bits of treated pine floating about.

Local councillor has impressed me by how much he has taken my concerns on-board and he has kept me informed about works undertaken for temporary repair work as well as letting me know of other ideas for what may/could be done soonish.

Got an email from someone else who takes this matter seriously as part of his job as an employee of Catchment Management Authority and was advised there could be funds made available via NSW Fisheries which will be most worthwhile to check out.

This is "my" backyard and the the main reason I want it fixed is to help the environment of an area of great importance locally due to that environmental importance on a range of issues.

My other interest is a little more selfish, my enrolment in a diploma of conservation and land management. I need access to land in order to do this course and since I own none of my own I figured this 40+ acre block of bush, beach and estuary is next best thing to work with/on (with full blessing of powers that be).

Sick to death with folk around here who won't get off their arses to help fix problems, but are more than happy to sit back and whinge in their regular "letters to the editor" whining 'bout the fact that council and/or state government should do more.

If we all got out and did a bit, we wouldn't need to worry so much 'bout that. (People who are happy to complain about litter but won't pick it up voluntarily 'coz they didn't drop it should HTFU, sound like six y.o school kids).

[pitoufsd]

Today I got an email from Landcare Community Support Officer regarding a plan we've had in mind to involve kids from the local high school in Landcare and Coastcare projects. After a couple of false starts due to sorting out dates, we'll finally kick off first or second week of term 4. I've got a meeting with LCSO and few staff at the school next week to sort out the nuts and bolts of it all.

Should be an interesting exercise...

[pitoufsd]

Met up with a couple of people this morning and sucked them in...err, got them to join Coastcare. They're living locally for next few months and are keen to do a bit of work here. Both of them are already involved in Fishcare and have been doing a heap of work on estuary rehabilitation, so should be able to make good use of their knowledge when it comes to fixing retaining wall and revegetating the area.

Spoke with CMA at the same time today and seems there is a possibility of getting funds together to carry out the repair/planting work. Idea is to use root-balls taken from land-clearing. Set them in place and allow them to become 'artificial' snags if the sand scours out again (filled in again over past few months).

[Wvq9InTM]

Met up with a couple of people this morning and sucked them in...err, got them to join Coastcare. They're living locally for next few months and are keen to do a bit of work here. Both of them are already involved in Fishcare and have been doing a heap of work on estuary rehabilitation, so should be able to make good use of their knowledge when it comes to fixing retaining wall and revegetating the area.

Spoke with CMA at the same time today and seems there is a possibility of getting funds together to carry out the repair/planting work. Idea is to use root-balls taken from land-clearing. Set them in place and allow them to become 'artificial' snags if the sand scours out again (filled in again over past few months).

Wasn't my comment earlier about removing 'root balls'?

Anyway.. creds .. these are good ideas.. but re-snag these root balls with rocks, gal weldmesh and maybe some long steel pegs.