Lorax Project starts back for 2013

On the 3oth May, Corporate volunteers from JBWere and National Australia Bank descended on the property of Rick and Claire Clark, Wildlfe carers and members of the King Parrot Creek Environment Group. Other members of the group; David, Laurie, Steve and Heather also assisted on the day.

JBWere and NAB volunteers 

We planted 480 native trees, shrubs and ground covers into a narrow gully to provide good cover for local fauna using the gully as a link to the remnant vegetation along the top of the ridge.

Revegetated gully at the Clark property

On 31st May we had a return by one of our ANZ teams for the 4th consecutive year. This year the dedicated bunch helped plant 350 trees and shrubs on a hillside at Paul and Denise Webster's property in Murrindindi. The Webster's treated us all to a great lunch of roast beef rolls and salad which everyone appreciated.

ANZ volunteers at Murrindindi

And just over the hills at Limestone on 26th May another NAB team put in a great effort to plant out a fenced off gully at the property of Judy Brookes with 320 indigenous plants. These plants will help to halt the erosion in the gully and also eventually provide a wildlife corridor linking the remnant vegetation on the Brookes farm with the Black Ranges in the east and the Yea River in the west.


Planting site at the Brookes property

NAB volunteers at Limestone

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.

Fencers Without Boundaries 2012

The Upper Goulburn Landcare Network fire recovery fencing program 'Fencers Without Boundaries' is now into its fourth and final year.

To date volunteers with our fencing program have contributed over 3000 days to rebuild 236 kilometres of fencing on fire affected properties throughout Murrindindi and Mitchell Shires. Only a fraction of the estimated 3,500 kilometres destroyed in the 2009 fires but significant for those landowners we’ve assisted.

Volunteers fencing off bushland at Kinglake

Volunteers at a Flowerdale property

This year our priority is for fencing to protect native habitats such as waterways, native vegetation and revegetation sites.  As seen in these photos of volunteers constructing fences for a revegetation corridor and a section of the King Parrot Creek in Flowerdale.

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

Grouse house for marsupial mouse

This nestbox may seem a rather large for these little fellows, but its a safe haven, at least. This and several other nestboxes were installed in July 2011 at Happy Valley in Flowerdale, as part of our UGLN nest box project. These boxes are actually designed for Sugar Gliders (Petaurus breviceps) and were built by volunteers from Rotary, South Australia.

Agile Antechinus (Antechinus agilis) are carnivorous marsupials related to quolls, devils and thylacines. You’d know it too, if you were ever to hold one in your bare hands, as they have a mouth full of sharp teeth used to catch and eat invertebrates. Their bite hurts, but rarely draws blood!

These two are last years babies. Either they’re just visiting, or they haven’t yet begun making a nest in this box. At this age, they’ve only recently been weaned and this could be two animals looking for a new home. Sexes are similar so its not possible to tell the sex of these two. In a recent study here in the Strathbogies, dispersing Antechinus travelled between 400m and 1750m (straight-line distance) from their mother’s home range!!, so these fellas might be strangers in town and very grateful to find an empty hollow.
By Bertram Lobert.

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/

JBWere joins the fire recovery with record effort

Our most succesfull tree planting day for the 2011 season so far was held at Steve and Linda Jungens property in Spring Valley Rd Flowerdale.

13 volunteers from JBWere were joined by members of the Strath Creek Landcare Group to plant over 900 plants along a section of the Spring Creek that the Jungens have fenced off from their stock. it was a great day and we all enjoyed the delicious bbq lunch provided by Linda and JBWere.

Out of the ashes - Plant your Paper Back heads into fire affected areas

The NAB 2011 Plant your Paper Back program has officially launched, with many employees signing up to plant trees, shrubs and grasses all over Australia.

Recently, NAB employees have been rolling up their sleeves in the Black Saturday fire affected area of Flowerdale and joining Chris Cobern from the Upper Goulburn Landcare Network to spend a day planting trees on land set aside for conservation.

The tree planting at Flowerdale is part of the "Lorax Project" which is a revegetation/tree planting project focusing on fire affected landowners in the Murrindindi and Mitchell Shires. The property they worked on is a 450 acre cattle farm owned by Diego and Georgia Puyol. With the assistance from Landcare of volunteers like NAB employees, Deigo and Georgia Puyol hope to plant up to 2,000 plants in areas of their property that they have fenced off and set aside for conservation.

Funded by the federal governments ‘Caring For Our Country program’, Landcare’s fire recovery project has been a great success with 30,000 plants planted in 2010 - 16,600 of them planted by corporate volunteers, like the teams you see pictured.

Focus On Fauna

These photo's were take on a property at Kinglake West on the Pheasant Creek using remote sensor cameras.
It is part of UGLN's 'Focus On Fauna' fire recovery program which is being carried out in the Strath Creek and Flowerdale area by David Wakefield from Strath Creek Landcare Group and also the Kinglake Ranges with assistance from the Kinglake Landcare Group.

The lyrebird photo's were taken at a display mound I found at the site. The male was calling for about 8 minutes when a female came by which of course attracted his attention.
The other photo's were taken at a disturbed area next to the forest where it looked like animals came out to graze.
For more information on UGLN's Focus on fauna go to http://focusonfauna.wordpress.com/

Weed Control Courses

Over the weekend of 19th & 20th February 23 people from the Flowerdale area attended the sixth free UGLN weed management course. The course was held at the Flowerdale Recreation Reserve pavillion and run by NMIT lecturer and Kinglake resident Kevin Chandler. A delicious morning tea and lunch was provided by Flowerdale's own catering business 'Molly's Kitchen'.

Since April 2009 we have been running free Weed Identification and Control Workshops and Farm Chemical Users Courses throughout the fire affected areas of Murrindindi Shire. The courses have also been held in Strath Creek, Marysville and Kinglake; and the next one is planned for the 2nd & 3rd April at Yea. They have all been well attended averaging around 20 per course with 34 attending the first one in Kinglake.

Strath Creek Nest Boxes

While checking nest boxes provided by the UGLN fire recovery program David and Laurie Wakefield from the Strath Creek Landcare Group were delighted to find a Brush-tailed Phascogale curled up in one of the boxes. Phascogales would have been hit hard by the Black Saturday fires, due to loss of tree hollows, ground cover and food sources. The Wakefield's and others in the district, have also found Sugar Gliders and an antechinus in nest boxes installed after the fires.

Happy Christmas EVERYONE see you again next year

There were many international volunteers in the group , this girl had only been in Australia for five days .

New Coordinator Phil Rance helped out in Chris' absence ( Mary has badly broken her ankle and is in hospital awaiting an operation )and enjoyed his first day working with volunteers.

The bus driver spent his time rewriting his science fiction noval in the bus - he emerged at lunchtime.

Clever use of a day away from the office was made by management , staff appraisal interviews were held in the paddock!

15 December 2010. Our very last team of planting volunteers for the year came from BMS Pharmaceuticals . This planting of aquatic and terrestrial plants was part of our Kinross Farm project at Flowerdale. Landcare supervisors :Janet Hagen & Phil Rance

The BMS volunteers arrived on time and ready for action. Agility and flexibility were the skills required for planting around the dam without falling into the water. 200 water plants and 300 lands plants were added to the edges of the beautiful dams at Kinross Farm , improving the habitat value of the site. (Phil noted sacred kingfishers and gang gang cockatoos watching us work) A peaceful and productive morning was enjoyed by all the participants , who promised to return again next year. Their catering crew did and excellent job preparing a BBQ lunch before the rain set in again !

Fencing in Flowerdale

On a fine spring day 30 staff from NAB Financial Planning completed 2km of fencing at Paul Michael's Flowerdale property. The NAB team were supervised by Mick Yarwood and some of the Shepparton fella's from the Uniting Church's fencing team. The property is nearly 1000 acres and very steep and rugged country and we spotted a couple of snakes but this didn't deter the very enthusiastic team from putting in a great days work.

A couple of weeks later we finished the remaining 800m with great help from Benalla High School students and teachers supervised by a couple of our SA Rotary fencing team.

The ANZ at 'Tranquil Rises', Flowerdale.

Today was a Landcare & Treeproject partnership at Ray Butterworth's, Flowerdale, where we are revegetating the VERY STEEP hills at the back of the property (but we need a good pair of gloves first).






25 ANZ volunteers plus 2 Treeproject & 2 Landcare support staff managed to.....

Plant 1100 trees!
Erect a marque for Sams 40th birhday party!
Sort the Glove Box!!!

A cold and showery day but great facilities and a warm fire supplied by Ray at "Tranquil Rises" trout fishing school .


Here's a rowdy group of (GO DOGGIES!) Bulldog supporters from the ANZ bank, helping at Ray Butterworth's.