California Conservation Corps

Volunteers from the California Conservation Corps (CCC) are currently in Australia on an 8 week exchange project with Conservation Volunteers Australia.

The have been working in South Australia and Victoria carrying out erosion and salinity control, seed collection, construction and maintenance of walking tracks, endangered flora and fauna surveys and monitoring.

During their time in Victoria the CCC spent a couple of days removing Blackberry, Broom and Tutsan from the Number Two Creek Reserve in Kinglake and helped with site preparation for a Kinglake Landcare/UGLN national tree day planting proposed for the nearby Koala Browse site.

Volunteers from the CCC at the Koala Browse site.

Fencers Without Boundaries winds up

After another very successful year the UGLN fire recovery fencing program 'Fencers Without Boundaries' (FWB) has finally come to an end.

SA Rotary volunteers fencing at Kinglake (2011)

Victorian Mobile Landcare Group (2010)

FWB stalwarts John Belfio and Alan Stafford at Sunday Creek (2011)

Fire affected landowners provided the fencing materials and UGLN provided the volunteer labour. For over three years volunteers with our fencing program contributed 3580 days to rebuild 246 KM of new fencing and remove 87.3 KM of burnt and damaged fencing on properties throughout Murrindindi and Mitchell Shires. 


Fencing off a wetland at Glenburn with CVA volunteers (2012)

Benalla High School students with
Uniting Church volunteers (2010)



International Bible Study volunteers with Alan helping to
fence off  the Spring Creek at Flowerdale (2012)

Funded by the Federal Governments 'Caring for our Country' and the 'Recycling for Recovery'
program, we were able to put tens of thousands of dollars back into the local community and small business' by sourcing local hotel and bunkhouse accommodation, catering and meals for our hardworking volunteers, quality tools and hardware from local suppliers, safety wear and PPE, the list goes on. 


Four Wheel drivers Marg, Geoff, Fred, Mitch and Ron. (2010)

We sourced volunteers from many areas and have been well supported by the Uniting Church, 4WD Clubs of Victoria, SA Rotary, Green Corp, Victorian Mobile Landcare Group, Benalla Secondary College, Hughes Creek Catchment Collaborative, Marcellin College, Conservation Volunteers Australia and International Bible Study Group Australia. As well as many corporate groups including NAB, ANZ, Earnst and Young, GPT Group, CPA and Cadbury.

NAB fencing at Kilmore East (2011)

ANZ volunteers removing burnt fences (2010)

Special mention must also go to the following individuals for the many, many days they volunteered towards our project: Alan Stafford, John Belfio, Neil Ireland, Lance Morrisby, Alan Diak, Tom Maddern, Chris Renwick, Rev. David Howie, all the Shepparton boys including Howard, Peter, Don, John E and John C, 4W drivers Geoff, Ron, Fred, Marg and Mitch, SA Rotarians Tony, Jannine, Brian, Kevin and Shirley and very sadly the late Glen Clement.

Shepparton boys having a break for lunch (2010)

Fencing volunteers and landowners at a 2011 get together.

In 2012 our priority was for fencing to protect native habitats such as waterways, native vegetation and revegetation sites. We built 31.8 KM of fencing on private land to protect riparian areas along the King Parrot, Spring, Mountain and Stony Creeks and also to protect over 20 hectares of remnant vegetation across the Kinglake Ranges.

Our equipment and volunteers are still being put to good use helping the Strath Creek Landcare Group with the fencing component of there biodiversity project.


Kevin Roberts (SA Rotary), Alan Stafford (Uniting Church) and Chris Cobern (UGLN)

Lorax Project 2012

The Upper Goulburn Landcare Networks revegetation 'Lorax Project' has finished for another year after a very successful year of tree planting throughout the fire affected areas of Murrindindi Shire.

JBWere volunteers at Buxton

This year 452 volunteers from NAB, ANZ, JBWere, Camberwell Secondary College, Strath Creek Landcare Group, Kevin Heinz Garden Centre, Conservation Volunteers Australia, Kinglake Landcare Group and the Salvation Army helped plant a total of 12110 indigenous plants.

ANZ volunteers at Kinglake

We also had great support again from Fifteen Trees who were able to provide much needed funds to purchase many plants for our project.

NAB volunteers planting trees funded by 15Trees

The Kevin Heinz Garden Centre with funding assistance from Rotary again grew many thousands of plants for us and even came up for a day to plant some at the Kinglake Lions Park.


Kevin Heinz Garden Centre volunteers at Kinglake Lions Park

We developed a great project with the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority which allowed us to fence and revegetate many kilometres of riparian areas along the King Parrot Creek and Spring Creek in Flowerdale.

NAB volunteers planting along the Spring Ck at Flowerdale

We revegetated 32 hectares of farmland and waterways on properties at Strath Creek, Flowerdale, Kinglake, Glenburn, Buxton and Murrindindi.


ANZ volunteers at Glenburn

The Lorax Project will continue in 2013 and thousands of seedlings are being grown as we speak in preparation for next years planting season.

NAB volunteers at Buxton

We will also be helping the Strath Creek Landcare Group with the tree planting component of their biodiversity project.

Volunteers at Strath Creek

Anyone interested in volunteering with our project in 2013 or landowners interested in getting tree planting carried out on their properties contact Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Narbethong Holly control project

The Friends of Marysville Walks and UGLN have been carrying out a very successfull project to control Holly in bushland and along waterways in the Narbethong area.

Working with and under the direction of Marilyn Connor from Friends of Marysville Walks, UGLN have controlled many hectares of holly on private and public land along Fisher Creek, Dom Dom Creek and Hermitage Creek by using our Recycling for Recovery funds to employ specialist weed control contractors.

Marilyn Connor with CVA volunteers at The Hermitage.

We have also supervised many volunteer days cutting out and poisoning holly at the‘The Hermitage’. Which is a heritage-listed building in Narbethong set amongst the tall Mountain Ash forest at the summit of the Black's Spur.

Our most recent day was with 10 volunteers from Conservation Volunteers Australia on the 15th June. Funding for this day was generously donated by the Kinglake Landcare Group from their Kinglake Stream Restoration Project.



CVA volunteers removing holly from bushland at Narbethong

Tree planting time.

Now is the perfect time to plant a tree and with the help of many volunteers we have been doing just that.

NAB & JB Were join forces

JB Were volunteers planting on the Spring Creek

Camberwell High School students in Flowerdale

So far this season as part of our fire recovery revegetation project we have planted 3760 plants with the help of volunteers from JB Were, NAB, CVA and Camberwell High School students.

Our aim is for about 10,000 plants by the end of the season. If you have a fire affected property that needs some revegetation or you are interested in volunteering on one of our days phone Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Lorax Project 2012

Our revegetation project (Lorax Project) has kicked off for 2012.
We recently have had volunteers from NAB, Aspect Personnel, Camberwell Secondary College and Conservation Volunteers Australia planting trees and shrubs along the Spring Creek, Stony Creek, at South Cathedral Farm in Buxton and the Kinglake Lions Park.

South Cathedral Farm - Buxton

NAB at Kinglake Lions Park

CVA at Stony Creek

Buxton Burger Lunch

For enquiries about tree planting on your fire affected property or to volunteer phone Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Conservation Volunteers Woody Weed Blitz

CVA at Narbethong

Volunteers from Conservation Volunteers Australia have been assisting UGLN with our weed control program.

CVA at Number Two Creek

Using the cut & paint method and handweeding the volunteers have been removing many hectares of woody weeds from private and public land affected by the 2009 fires.
The volunteers have removed holly from The Hermitage at Narbethong and Stony Creek in Kinglake West, English and Cape Broom from roadsides in Pheasant Creek and Kinglake, Tutsan and Blackberry from The Number Two Creek in Kinglake and Flax-leaf Broom in Strath Creek.

Conservation Volunteers is a not for profit organization whose mission is “connecting people with our environment.”
For more information, or if you would like to join the teams as a volunteer, contact Conservation Volunteers on 1800 032 501 or go to there website: http://www.conservationvolunteers.com.au/

Fencers Without Boundaries

Our UGLN fire recovery fencing program 'Fencers Without Boundaries' has just completed another very successful year.
To date volunteers with our fencing program have contributed over 2500 days to rebuild 220 kilometres of fencing on fire affected properties throughout Murrindindi and Mitchell Shires.

Funded by the Federal Governments 'Caring for our Country' program, we have put tens of thousands of dollars into the local community and small business' by sourcing local accommodation, catering and meals, timber & hardware, transport, machinery, hotels, safety wear suppliers, the list goes on.

We have also employed locals from Whittlesea, Kinglake West, Yea and Kilmore.

Our program will continue in 2012 but our focus will be on fencing to protect native habitats such as waterways, remnant vegetation and revegetation sites. As seen in these photos of CVA and Uniting Church volunteers recently fencing off a tributary of the Yea River from cattle.

To volunteer or to find out more about our fencing program phone Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Lorax project 2011 winds up for another year

The UGLN's Lorax Project has finally finished for 2011.
The high demand for trees on fire affected properties and the good soaking spring and early summer rains allowed us to continue our revegetation program a bit longer than usuall.
This year we revegetated over 31 hectares by planting 9580 plants with assistance from 562 volunteers. We also potted up over 2000 plants for next years reveg program.

The volunteers came from many different community and corporate groups including stalwarts NAB and ANZ, Stiefel Laboratories, Conservation Volunteers Australia, Kinglake

Scouts, DSE, Dept of Planning and Rural Communities, Kevin Hienz Garden Centre, Christ Church Grammar School, Marcellin College and JB Were.
Our program will kick off again in Autumn 2012.
For enquiries about tree planting on your fire affected property or to volunteer phone Chris Cobern on 5736 0104.

Round-leaf Pomaderris

A team from Conservation Volunteers Australia has doing some great work with us tree planting and removing Cape Broom and English Broom from properties in the Kinglake/Flowerdale area.

One of the days was spent planting at the Stony Creek reserve in Kinglake West. The reserve has had holly and blackberry control works over the last two years. Now with the weeds under control we are able to carry out revegetation.
Plants included fifty of the very rare Pomaderris vaccinifolia or Round-leaf Pomaderris. These very special plants were grown for us by Healesville Environment Watch from seed collected in the Toolangi area.

We also planted more of the Pomaderris on private land along the Number One Creek in Kinglake, Island Creek in Glenburn, at the Murrindindi Scenic Reserve (with assistance from DSE) and on private land along the Murrindindi River in Murrindindi.

Lorax Project In Full Swing

Our fire recovery revegetation program 'Lorax Project' is motoring along at the moment and the volunteers are enjoying getting outdoors amongst the fine spring weather.

Over the last two months with the help of many volunteers from NAB and CVA as well as local volunteers from the Kinglake Scouts and Strath Creek Landcare Group we have planted almost 3000 plants throughout properties in Flowerdale, Kinglake, Glenburn and Kilmore East.

We have also had great support from the following organistations and business' by supplying plants or funding for our plants: Fifteen Trees, Kevin Heinz School of Horticulture, Apprenticeships Plus, NAB and Rotary.

Conservation Volunteers Australia

Volunteers from Conservation Volunteers Australia (CVA) have recently been helping with the UGLN's fire recovery by planting trees at Flowerdale and Kinglake West and removing holly and privet from amongst bushland on the Stony Creek.

The team was very multicultural with members from Norway, America and China.

Using volunteers from around Australia and across the world CVA participate in a diversity of important projects to protect and enhance our environment.
To find out more go to: http://www.conservationvolunteers.com.au/