Landcare Illawarra: tackling large problems in small bites

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when thinking about the state of the environment. There’s so much to do, so much discussion, and the list of problems needing a resolution just seems to be growing.

According to a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, we can add the cost of invasive species to that list. The report found that invasive species cost the global economy more than $423 billion every year and have played a role in 60% of plant and animal extinctions globally.

But there’s plenty of smaller, grass-roots organisations making a huge impact through the efforts of local volunteers. Landcare Illawarra is one of those organisations, helping the community to get involved in environmental protection and restoration activities throughout the region, including tackling the damage done by invasive species.

Emma Rooksby, one of the founders of Growing Illawarra Natives and chair of Landcare Illawarra said, “One focus that Landcare Illawarra has had for many years is restoring threatened ecological communities. There are around 20 in this region, many of which occur nowhere else in the world like Illawarra Lowlands Grassy Woodland and Illawarra Subtropical Rainforest.

“We work with local landholders who have these communities on their property and help them restore it …

"Our occasional planting days are some of the most popular activities we run, but nothing pleases me more than seeing an area where the native vegetation is re-establishing itself over time, reclaiming degraded scrub or pasture.”

There are 15 Landcare groups across the Illawarra from the Royal National Park down to Seven Mile Beach, working on both private and public land. Emma explained that as a volunteer you might be watering, weeding, planting, or helping with erosion control and pest species management but that there are other benefits too.

“It’s a chance to spend some time with like-minded people… spotting native birds, insects and mammals, or just sitting still and enjoying being in nature,” she said.

Locally, pest species have wide-ranging consequences. “Unfortunately invasive species do huge amounts of damage to our local plants and animals. It's hard to put a dollar value on biodiversity, but I reckon if we quantified the Illawarra Escarpment it would be worth at least a billion a year in terms of intrinsic value, plus the value of so-called 'ecosystem services' such as stopping the escarpment soils eroding across our suburbs, and also slowing the progress of dangerous bushfires,” Emma said.

Along with joining Landcare or similar organisations throughout the region, there’s plenty you can do at home. As spring rolls on and we all get bitten by the gardening bug, Emma suggests that instead of heading to Bunnings for the ‘latest and greatest’, choose local native species instead, making “your garden a habitat hotspot for local wildlife.”

Wollongong City Council’s GreenPlan Nursery has plenty of plants suitable for the region, with lots of staff on hand to help out people like me who lack a green thumb. Save the date for their Super Saturday Plant Sale on October 7.

Head to Landcare Illawarra or contact Ailee Calderbank, the Landcare Illawarra local coordinator, at coordinator@landcareillawarra.org.au to join local groups and educational events (the AGM is on 23 November and will feature two talks on the coastal vegetation of the region).

And Growing Illawarra Natives has loads of tips on the best native plants for local conditions, including areas frequented by one of the region’s cuter invasive pests, deer.