Invasive plant removal in Australia

In 2020, A Rocha Australia volunteers in the Toowoomba area of southern Queensland were commissioned to start controlling invasive plants and weeds at two bushland parks managed by the council, in collaboration with a local community organization, Friends of the Escarpment Parks.

The first project is a five hectare remnant of blackbutt-dominated eucalypt forest. This is an endangered regional ecosystem in Toowoomba’s outer suburbs at Nielson Park. Invasive plants like lantana and asparagus fern are removed, allowing indigenous understorey species to establish. The other is removal of Cat’s Claw Creeper at Redwood Park, a larger council reserve on Toowoomba’s eastern escarpment below the watershed of the Great Dividing Range. This plant has smothered trees and shrubs in semi-evergreen vine thicket (‘softwood scrub’ or ‘dry rainforest’), destroying the canopy and ruining this endangered ecosystem. Threatened species include Black-breasted Button-quail and Powerful Owl, as well as fruit-bats and orchids. It is slow and laborious work but highly rewarding as mature trees are cut free and seedlings are discovered under masses of creeper, taken off the ground layer.

A Rocha Australia also does monthly bird surveys using the national BirdLife Australia methodology. So far, this has revealed an over-abundance of aggressive bird species, typical of the urban location. There are several small bird species in the now generous cover of shrubs. Bowerbirds maintain several territories and owls and frogmouths visit the park.

A Rocha hopes that its demonstrations of direct intervention in these community projects will encourage greater engagement of Toowoomba churches in creation care.

Read the report on the first year (2020) of A Rocha Australia monthly bird surveys at Nielsen Park, Toowoomba.

More about A Rocha Australia’s projects.

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