Woody Weeds Working Party Sunday 15 June 1-4 pm
The highly invasive non-local Australian plant Rosemary Grevillea, Grevillea rosmarinifolia was given free to residents to establish gardens in Hackett and Ainslie in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Photo courtesy of Canberra NatureMapr.
Friends of Mt Majura will warmly welcome new and experienced weeders to tackle woody weeds along the Hackett Houses track area. Please arrive by 1pm to meet workmates & weeds.
Where: Nature reserve gate car park, Mackenzie Street roughly opposite Grayson Street, Hackett; click this map to see the meeting point.
What: Cutting and dabbing small shrubs mainly evergreen garden escapees such as Grevilleas and Privets on both sides of the Hackett Houses track.
Bring: BYO water, sun protection, garden gloves, and wear sturdy shoes & gardening clothes; we provide the tools and home-made cake for afternoon tea.
For more information see here or contact secretary@majura.org
Want to be a Walk Leader?
Calling for people who would like to volunteer as a walk & talk guide with Friends of Mt Majura or know someone who you think might be interested.
Walks that volunteers have led in Mt Majura Nature reserve over the past 21 years have focused on: ants, spiders at night, Peacock spiders, butterflies, tiny nocturnal creatures, spotlighting, birds, Gang-gangs, wildflowers, orchids, trees, and the environment – on World Environment Day. We have not had a geological walk recently; the last one was in 2010. We would like more spider walks. A Haiku writing workshop in a scenic spot might be fun….
Being a walk leader involves freely sharing your expertise and passion with small groups of people for 2 hours once a year (or more).
There is a wide range of how often these happen for an individual leader: from once or twice ever, to twice a year for at least 15 years.
If you are interested, contact: FoMMnaturewalks@gmail.com
Reports
Sunday Seeding
On Sunday 18 May on a cool windy afternoon about 20 volunteers including a group of children found ways to scarify the soil in compacted bare patches, spread a variety of native grass seeds on the loosened soil and then quickly cover the grassy seed stems with a light layer of wood chip mulch, to stop them blowing away. Despite misgivings because of the gusty wind, the process worked quite well; now the seeds wait patiently for the right conditions to germinate. We all enjoyed a delicious pineapple upside down cake made by Margy. In spring we plan to repeat this seeding experience in other bare patches with more grass seeds bought using the funds supplied in our environmental grant. We’ll let you know when this will be in a future newsletter.
A rainbow to remind us it will rain again… this one over the Fair late on seeding Sunday. Photo by Jenni Marsh.
Mondays at the Fair
Perhaps you have noticed we are in an autumn drought? The local media have just discovered it, and the Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting it will worsen in the coming months. The impact on the Fair project area is obvious; the growth from the summer storm rains has been grazed right down by roos and rabbits, the serrated tussocks stand out against the dry soil. In the middle of May the Monday @ The Fair group watered the Tall Sedges Carex appressa planted near the Fair dam –they are looking good in their guards. Of the 50 planted in spring in the gully where the Sweet Vernal Grass was removed, about three quarters of them survived over summer, even though most were heavily grazed for some time. With repurposed guards and some new ones supplied by ranger Marty, these survivors are now almost all protected from further grazing.
Most of the Umbrella Sedge Cyperus eragrostis growing around the margin of the rapidly shrinking Fair dam is now under black plastic; the team recovered it from the Sweet Vernal Grass gully. The hope is that this will reduce the weedy sedge problem.
For a couple of May Mondays, the team have been monitoring the inner Fair area for scattered weeds and attacking them with dabbers for woody weeds, or mattocks for herbaceous weeds or isolated serrated tussocks. Moving to the margins and into the wider Fair area, there were more weeds to tackle, like young blue gums and Viburnum tinus near Valour Park and patches of Paterson’s curse. The plan is to continue this approach and map any larger patches for later spraying, hopefully by contractors. Come and join in the team work any Monday at 9:30 meeting at theTay St, North Watson entrance to the reserve. You will be helping nature in the endangered box gum grassy woodland and enjoying the fresh air and companiable company.
After the Sunday seeding session, the Mondays @ The Fair group continued the grass seeding around the compacted areas near the lower seed node.
Picture by Waltraud Pix.
A Fab Fossil Find
Someone at the Sunday seeding brought a small fossil, an ancient shell found at Mount Majura from the time long ago when it was not a mountain at all but a marine area. Between 450 and 405 million years ago marine invertebrates lived in a shallow warm ocean in the sediments among coral outcrops that once covered the area; about 50 million years later, volcanoes erupted, the remnants of which are now known as Mt Majura and Mt Ainslie. For more information about fossils in the ACT see here. And also see Waltraud’s sighting on NatureMapr of Trilobite fossils from the same area on Mt Majura, found in 2010.
The small fossil of a Brachiopod bivalve invertebrate more than 400 M years old. Photo courtesy of Canberra NatureMapr.
Will we ever find something really exciting like a fossil reptile or perhaps a fossil frog on Mt Majura? ‘Fraid not. The rocks are too ancient. But go to Mansfield in Victoria and you might be lucky. See this article from the Conversation.
Good News Stories
Mount Majura Film of The Fair Project
This is The Fair project site in 1978. Car racing in the 1970s left heavy marks in the area. Source of the aerial photo is ACT mapi. Red circle is the big conifer. The Federal Highway is in the north at the top with a double row of plantings and Antill Street on the west (left hand side of the photo). In 2012 the Friends of Mt Majura (FoMM) volunteers began restoration work to improve the heavily degraded grassy woodland. Weeds (woody and herbaceous), an almost total loss of the native ground-cover layer and tree clearing, soil erosion and compaction were the major issues that the volunteers encountered.
Great progress has been made with rehabilitation of The Fair site. Compare the bare site in the 1978 photo with what we see there now – a box gum grassy woodland with many local native trees, shrubs, grasses and wildflowers. Thanks to Richard Snashall we have a film showing the site in 2024.
See the 2024 Film commissionedby Kristy Gould, Restoration Program Manager at the Office of Nature Conservation, as part of the restoration program.
This film shows that with long term sustained effort it is possible to rehabilitate what was initially an endangered Box Gum Grassy Woodland even when it had been almost entirely obliterated by decades of use for recreational pursuits.
Unfortunately, with the cycles of drought and heavy overgrazing (kangaroos prefer to graze native grasses rather than introduced plants = weeds) there is a real danger that we will fall back to a degraded situation where weeds take over (perhaps not as bad as before), because weed seeds are still present in the soil seed bank.
As all land managers know, the only long term way to control weeds is to keep a good native ground cover which works for almost all weeds, with only few exceptions such as African Lovegrass and Chilean Needle Grass; even St John’s Wort (StJW) seeds stored in the ground would not germinate if soil is covered with a herbaceous layer whereas StJW explodes if fire and overgrazing and other disturbances open up the cover.
We can’t forever swamp the grassy woodland with herbicide, volunteers do not have the capacity to hand weed the whole lot,and buying native grass seeds for direct seeding native grass every 3-5 years is too expensive (plus availability is a problem). The actions to interrupt the weed reproductive cycle are only temporarily justified if there is a prospect that the major drivers i.e. overgrazing will be managed. Otherwise,they are not sustainable!
Thanks to all our film stars especially toWaltraud Pix for this story and her contributions to FoMM since its inception.
Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve
This is a photo of a painting of Tower Hill near Warrnambool, painted in 1855 by Eugenevon Guérard and currently on display at the Warrnambool Art Gallery. It was used as the inspiration for the rehabilitation of Tower Hill, a project begun in 1961.
Tower Hill is a nested maar volcano, but the volcanic eruptions were much more recent than at Mt Majura. The landscape has conical hills and crater lakes that date from 34,000 years ago. As the painting shows when Europeans settled in the area it was heavily vegetated and home to Aboriginal people but subsequently it was denuded and the fertile soils used for farming and grazing, with quarrying of limestone also occurring.
Since the 1960s the people of Warrnambool have been rehabilitating the area. The architect Robin Boyd designed the Visitor Centre which was opened in 1969. Recently this Centre has been refurbished and as part of that process the Robin Boyd Foundation has produced a 3D display showcasing the history and the restored environment of Tower Hill and the people who have achieved this marvellous outcome. Look at the 3D tour on a big screen because it contains embedded video interviews (red arrows) and shows historic glimpses of the formerly denuded country as well as what it is like today. Another environmental rehabilitation success story from long term commitment by many people.
The Visitor Centre has been refurbished by architects Lovell Chen – see their website for more pictures and information; there is a recent media release here.
This archival photo from 1970 shows the Visitor Centre and the denuded hills of the wildlife reserve.
Field Naturalists are an important part of the Tower Hill story. The FieldNaturalists Club of Victoria Inc are “Victoria’s oldest conservation club” established in 1880. Thereis a similar active group in Canberra – see here and in the Events section at the end of this newsletter.
The Ecological Revolution – an essay by Tom Griffiths, ANU emeritus professor of history, looks at changes in Australia’s awareness of ecology mainly since the 1960s (not going back to the 1880s), see Inside Story.
Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC)
In the April newsletter there was a story about the Wandiyali~Environa Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a part of the AWC, an infinitesimal part compared to their other areas of activity. Have you been watching the documentary Kimberley on ABC television? The AWC manages millions of hectares of the Kimberley environment mostly in conjunction with the local indigenous people. See here for more about the AWC.
At Wandiyali there are or soon will be the same edge effects we see at Mt Majura where it borders on suburbia. The Kimberley reserves do not have that problem, but invasive species are still an issue. The arrival of the cane toad has had a devastating impact, and the TV doco highlighted the role of offshore islands in providing a refuge for the northern quoll.
Kangaroo Island (KI) & Cats
KI is the largest inhabited island anywhere in the world with a feral cat eradication program and the program is winning! Using advanced technology and with huge support they anticipate that this winter they will achieve 90% eradication. Since 2020 more than 1600 cats have been removed from KI and now it is estimated that only about 150 remain. From this winter they will also employ two trained and certified feral cat dogs on the island. These dogs are of the Blue-tick Racoon Hound breed that naturally trails and bays its target species with no interest in livestock or other animal species. See here for more information.
Saving Two Critically Endangered Species from the Snowy Mountains
Two stories from the ACT Landcare May 2025 ACT NRM E-News; to subscribe go to the Landcare website.
Pygmy Possum Burramys parvus is a tiny marsupial from the snow fields, with a shrinking habitat, affected by the Black Summer bushfires and a diminishing supply of its favourite food, bogong moths. A recent story outlines some success in improving its situation by supplying the possums with “bogong bickies”.
Stocky Galaxias Galaxias tantangara is a tiny fish in limited sections of the mountain streams in the Upper Murrumbidgee; some were rescued from the Black Summer bushfires, bred in captivity by Charles Sturt University, and now are being released into an artificial stretch of constructed stream, a rehabilitation site at Eucumbene Borrows. Read this article and see the videos.
Similar to the captive breeding of the Canberra Earless Dragon, these types of short-term rescue efforts will be in vain if habitat destruction continues.
Canberra Earless Dragon
For the Canberra Earless Dragon, the Conservation Council ACT Region has a petition you can sign and is running an email campaign. See this website to sign the petition and to participate in sending an email to the incoming federal minister, Senator Murray Watt and/or to the Airport, urging them to stop the destruction of dragon habitat at the Canberra airport.
Good News or Not?
The ACT Biosecurity Act 2023 has now come into force.
There are now two instruments
- Biosecurity (Pests) Declaration 2025 – contains all of the naturalized invasives that the government manage as known risks. (Not all known risks are listed; for example, Callery Pear is not on this list.)
- Biosecurity (Notifiable and Prohibited Biosecurity Matter) Declaration 2025 – Anything on this list is high risk and must be reported if found, many of these are nationally notifiable.
The Act introduces General Biosecurity Duty: this means all reasonable steps must be taken to ensure a biosecurity threat is managed. If you know about a threat or ought to know about it, the general biosecurity duty applies.
Not Good News
Prepared by the former Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment Dr Sophie Lewis, and presented to the ACT legislature by the current commissioner Dr Maxine Cooper, “Close to the Edge” details the environmental destruction caused by Canberra’s urban sprawl over the 20 years 2004-23 and the complete ineffectiveness of the legislation which was supposed to protect nature. There are also suggested remedies and recommendations.
Events
Worldwide Day of Botanical Art
This was on May 18th and there was an exhibition at Belco Arts featuring Australian plants used in native cultures. A catalogue is available for sale here where you can also see small versions of the exhibited pictures. See the slide show from all participating nations at https://www.youtube.com/@BotanicalArtWorldwide2025
For exhibitions and events in June at Belco Arts see their Facebook page or Instagram.
National Reconciliation Week (NRW)
The dates for NRW remain the same each year: 27 May to 3 June. These dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey – the successful 1967referendum, and the High Court Mabo decision respectively.
Monday 2 June 2 – 4 pm Plant Identification Workshop near Lake Ginninderra – Free for Volunteers – For more info see Register here
Tuesday 3 June 6 pm Electrify CanberraEvent Conversations with Saul Griffiths and Canberra launch of his book “Plug In” at ANU. Get free tickets here.
Thursday 5 June – World Environment Day– this year calls for collective action to tackle plastic pollution, see here.
ACT Environment Awards 2025
Thu, 5 Jun, 5:30pm – 9:30pm AEST – See here for information and to get free tickets. Food and drink will be available to buy at the venue.
Thursday 5 June 7 pm – Field Naturalists Association of Canberra June Monthly Meeting – Speaker: Steve Taylor “The Citizen Science of Giant Eucalypts” Non members welcome. For details see here.
Tyronne Bell with a group of Friends of Mount Majura on a tour last September. Photo by Waltraud Pix.
Ngunawal Workshops on Mount Majura – Free for Environmental Volunteers – Register here
- Tuesday 10 June – Ngunawal on Country Tour : Walk on Country with Ngunawal Traditional Custodian, Tyronne Bell, as he shares cultural knowledge and history through interpretation of the landscape, connection to Country and stories.
- Wednesday 11 June – Ngunawal Language Workshop : Go along for a 2-hour workshop with Ngunawal Traditional Custodian Tyronne Bell, designed to teach an Acknowledgement of Country in Ngunawal language – the language of the traditional inhabitants of the ACT and surrounds. The session also includes learning a few basic greetings/words and protocols for delivering an Acknowledgement.
Thursday 3 July 7 pm – Field Naturalists Association of Canberra
July Monthly Meeting – Speaker: Shoshana Rapley “Bush Stone-curlews” Details here. Get a preview of the curlews’ story from the ABC news.
Now till 28 July – Birdlife Australia Photography Awardssee here.
Even if you are not a keen birder or photographer, look at the tremendous prize-winning photos from last year! And look at Birdlife Australia’s wish list for the new federal government.
Bush Stone-curlew Burhinus grallarius a locally extinct species which has been successfully reintroduced via Mulligans Flat.
Photo courtesy of Canberra NatureMapr.
