Thank you to Friends of Eastern Hill who joined our park stewardship morning at Devils Glen on Eastern Hill last week.

Our focus was removing environmental weeds from a corridor linking Doctors Point Road and Eastern Hill environmental lands. This corridor provides an important refuge for the movement of wildlife between the river and the hills.

This same area took weeks of chainsaw work to clear a decade ago. With all hands on deck and using hand tools, we removed the returning woody weeds from a kilometre of bush in a mere 1 ½ hours.

Unlike a chainsaw session, our ‘cut and chat’ morning allowed for lots of conversation and camaraderie.  We used bow saws and the highly targeted ‘cut and paint’ method to treat individual weeds; locating plants, cutting them off near the ground and painting the stem stump with poison.  As long as the chemical is applied quickly and directly, these weeds will not be growing back.

Our regular community volunteer sessions are showing how effective it is to scan for and treat woody weeds annually, preventing them from reaching maturity and recolonising the bush. The small volume of environmental weeds found last week also demonstrates how resilient our natural landscapes are to significant disturbance.

Thank you to Albury City Council for their financial support for these park stewardship sessions, which not only provide a great opportunity for community to connect on country, but also ensure the improved biodiversity values of our environmental lands are sustained.

Keep an eye on our events calendar for the next sessions.