User Profile

Emma Rooksby

Emma Rooksby is a local volunteer bush regenerator and environmental educator who helped establish the Growing Illawarra Natives website. She is passionate about protecting and restoring local biodiversity in the Illawarra region and collaborates with many groups and individuals who share that passion.

Science & Nature

Above us, swamps

Swamps! Incredible places whose soil is regularly wet or even underwater, rich in biodiversity, amazing creatures like giant dragonflies and strange and sometimes unappealing scents (at least to us humans). The Illawarra is home to swamps in...

Emma Rooksby

September 2025

Science & Nature

Creeks and weeds: Why go slow in infested waterways

One thing everyone seems to be able to agree on about Illawarra creeks is that there are far too many weeds in them. From Trad to Privet to Coral Tree to Camphor Laurel, it seems that our local waterways are absolute weed magnets. And we all reckon...

Emma Rooksby

August 2025

Science & Nature

What are the trees telling us?

It’s that time of year when the days start getting longer, though not really warmer, and all sorts of flowers start to appear. Frances Bodkin’s compilation of a Dharawal seasonal calendar says this period is known as Wiritjiribin, after the Superb...

Emma Rooksby

August 2025

Clubs & Community

New Bicycle Buddies scheme is getting women on their bikes

A new mentoring program in Wollongong aims to increase the confidence and skills of women and non-binary people to ride their bikes for active transport and leisure. Bicycle Buddies, an initiative of the Illawarra Bicycle Users Group (IBUG), rolled...

Emma Rooksby

August 2025

Science & Nature

Are we (and our creeks) in for another wet summer (or 10)?

It’s been raining again, and it’s got me thinking about we can expect from the weather and the climate over the coming spring and summer period

Emma Rooksby

August 2025

Science & Nature

A tale of Cabbage Tree Creek

With over a dozen waterways running east from the escarpment in the Illawarra, each with its own unique history, there are myriad stories to tell about them.

Emma Rooksby

August 2025

Science & Nature

Plant water-loving Illawarra natives to create habitat and help stop erosion

Back to the plants this week! As we are going with the riparian flow for a while, I thought I’d feature a few of Illawarra’s most water-loving plants. There are dozens of local water plants, living anywhere from periodically inundated creek lines to...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

What actually is a waterway?

Since my last couple of posts, I’ve had all sorts of interesting conversations about waterways. First Nations Peoples caring for the Country to which they belong; people who live on or own (in the conventional legal system) a stretch of waterway...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

Illawarra waterways – a spot of history

Having grandly announced a new series of articles on Illawarra waterways, I was promptly struck with an intense case of writer’s block. Or, to be honest, it was more like writer’s log-jam, with dozens of thoughts crowding in together and butting up...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

Ebb and flow: New series features Illawarra waterways

We’ve looked recently at gardening for lizards, for insects, for birds and for platypus, and I’ve really enjoyed the journey. But taking that sequence further (’Gardening for whales’ anyone?) would require leaps of creative imagination and...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for Platypus in the Illawarra

This is the last in the ‘gardening for’ series for now, and hence time to take a step up and beyond! Let’s all garden for Platypus. It sounds pretty unusual and niche, doesn’t it? Perhaps something that is only possible for folks with a large...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for frogs in the Illawarra

Cool weather is here, it’s bracing and refreshing, the wind rushes in from the west and south, down gullies and across the plain. I don’t enjoy it, but I feel even more for the frogs. There are sixteen-odd local frog species across the Illawarr...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for birds in the Illawarra

Illawarra native birds are a diverse and interesting lot, with 440 species recorded in Terrill Nordstrom’s 2020 A guide to Birdlife of the Illawarra Region of NSW. With our diverse ecology and coastal areas, the region is home to everything from...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for lizards in the Illawarra

At this time of the year I’m a bit of a lizard myself: very slow to get moving of a morning, and seeking out the sun to warm up. I’m always amazed how much difference a bit of direct sunlight on your skin makes on a chilly winter’s day. It’s already...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025