Central Coast - Meeting & talk: Rainforest restoration

Colette Livermore currently chairs the Palm Grove Ourimbah Creek Landcare group which has implemented successful biological control of Tradescantia fluminensis.

The group has been going for 22 years and has restored about 60 acres of cleared and degraded land along Ourimbah Creek into a rainforest and wetland area.  Three of the original  members are still working at the site.  

Colette is a retired doctor with an interest in bird photography and this first led her to the site.  When she retired 4 years ago, Colette joined the Landcare group.

Colette writes:

'One of our founding members Brian Patterson was a CSIRO scientist and had an interest in Tradescantia fluminensis.  He had connections with the CSIRO and through Ben Gooden we were included in the  trial release of smut fungus (Kordyana brasiliensis) about 2 years ago.   We subsequently had a flood which helped spread the fungus throughout the site in the direction of the water flow.

The fungus has helped weaken the trad and has seen a revival of  Native Grasses such as Right Angle Grass / Wiry Panic (Entolasia stricta) and Basket Grass (Oplismenus hirtellus) and given better germination of seeds without the smothering cover of the trad.'

Hear Colette talk about the program.

All welcome.

Enquiries to Barbara at centralcoast@austplants.com.au

At the site, May 2022. Photo Andrew Melville.