From all of us at Greater Sydney Landcare, we wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We are so grateful for your ongoing support and all you do for our precious natural environment! We have been busy working to protect, restore and improve the natural environment of Greater Sydney and we are very proud of our achievements.

We have planted some 105 000 plants through our Creating Canopies program, and we have been continuing to monitor our planting sites and are delighted to see the plants doing so well!

We recently had the last community volunteer planting day for Greater Sydney Landcare's Canopies team of 2022 at Kyeemagh Community Hub. The Fix It Sisters - a Men's Shed for women - are based at the Kyeemagh Hub. They provided a great morning tea and tour of their facility where they are busy making native beehive nest boxes, fairy penguin habitat and floating habitat rafts! Over 600 Coastal Heath and Eastern Suburb's Banksia Scrub species were planted, many grown by IndigiGrow, a 100% Aboriginal owned, run and staffed not-for-profit native plant nursery.
 
These planting days are really embraced by the volunteer community and Bayside Council's Madeline Hourihan used the opportunity to announce a new Bushcare group which the Fix It Sister's will host. The Kyeemagh site is at the mouth of the Cooks River and continues the long-term commitment of Mud Crabs and the Cooks River Alliance's participating Councils with help from Landcare toward making the Cooks River swimmable by 2035.

The NSW Koala Strategy has recently partnered with Greater Sydney Landcare to facilitate a Southwest Sydney Koala Project. The project will be funding a full time Landcare position to encourage all forms of conservation in the Campbelltown and Wollondilly Local Government areas.

Specifically, on-ground koala habitat restoration works in the Campbelltown – Gilead – Wedderburn – Appin – Wilton areas will be of focus. This will include bush regeneration, weed control, fencing, seed collection, tree planting and cultural burning.

Workshops will also be carried out in several areas raising awareness of the importance of koala habitat and how landholders can get involved with carrying out conservation on private land.

Additional conservation actions include education – expanding Campbelltown’s fantastic school Koala education package into the Wollondilly area. Plus, emphasis will be placed on making the roads safer for Koalas crossing them and providing support wherever necessary to wildlife carers.

If you are a resident in the areas mentioned above and are interested in finding out how you can be involved in the Southwest Sydney Koala Project, please contact Xuela Sledge: xuela.sledge@greatersydneylandcare.org

Streamwatch is providing training on scientifically proven methods to collect data by the people for the people. In doing so, the program is providing evidence for authorities to respond to pollution events in urban waterways, making changes needed to preserve, protect and adapt together and supporting social change to build partnerships within our communities to build a framework of responsibility for our local freshwater ecosystems.
It’s a great way to get outside, meet awesome people, learn new skills, contribute to environmental science and help protect our waterways.

There has unfortunately been a delay in chemical reagents of 6 months due to Covid delayed shipments from the USA that have just arrived and will be shipped out as soon as possible. The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) Database has also been delayed due to positions changing, but the historical data will be updated by the end of the year so training for our new data system will commence in the new year.

Ku-ring-gai Council has been dedicated to its community and waterways, investing and training up local volunteers with our program. Friends of Toongabbie Creek have started up, as well as Ryde City Council and Hunters Hill Council. Fitzgerald Creek and Garguree Swampcare Katoomba have started back up. Field of Mars Education Centre will be joining us in the new year.  Lindy, Tim & Sophia, you have all been hard working and dedicated to get 4 beautiful sites monitored along our catchments! Training days with these amazing volunteers enable us to collect water samples and report the data on the Atlas of Living Australia  (ALA) platform.

If you would like any more information, or wish to come to any of our upcoming trainings, or wish to find a group near you, please contact Jess Lumbroso:
jessica.Lumbroso@greatersydneylandcare.org

Season’s Greetings! We thank you for your continued support throughout 2022 and we look forward to an exciting year in 2023!

Greater Sydney Landcare