Supporting Community Action in Coffs Harbour Local Government Area
This project is funded by the Coffs Harbour City Council Environmental Levy and has been renewed every year since 2000. In this time Coffs Harbour Regional Landcare has received a total of $990 000 from the levy for this project which has helped to support our 300+ volunteers undertake rehabilitation and revegetation works across 32 sites in the Coffs Harbour region.
Each year the project provides funding for
- The day-to-day volunteer and administrative support by Landcare officers
- The training of volunteers including targeted on-site training as well as first aid, chemcert etc.
- Tools and materials such as hand tools, plants and herbicides for volunteers
- Personal protective equipment such as insect shield coveralls, hats, sunscreen and first aid kits
- Insurance
- Bush regenerator contractor support to perform initial weed control/chemical spraying on sites heavily affected with noxious and environmental weeds
- Materials and support of our community nursery that grows locally sourced plants for our work sites
The project has enabled our volunteers to
- maintain and enhance native vegetation condition
- control threatening processes (eg. vine weeds) to protect and rehabilitate endangered and threatened species and ecosystems
- increase habitat connectivity
- reduce the impacts of noxious and environmental weeds
- monitor and report new weed incursions
- improve water quality by minimising riparian erosion and reducing nutrient inputs
- raise awareness and educate the local community on their local environment
The Friends of Coffs Creek Landcare Group is a great example of what has been achieved under this project. This group works 3 days a week along 9 km of the Coffs Creek riparian zone. They carry out rehabilitation works on around 33ha of remnant bushland providing approximately 3000 volunteer hours per year. This area is a very important asset to the Coffs Harbour community as it contains two endangered ecological communities and many threatened species can be observed along Coffs Creek including a breeding pair of Powerful Owls and koalas. The Coffs Creek walk is a popular recreational facility for walkers and cyclists.