Woody Weed Control
An educational workshop to enable and encourage landholders to deal with Privet on their properties
Capacity building - LEP23_015_LLC_4
The issue
In the Central Coast area, there are a large number of properties with remnant vegetation and privet or lantana infestations. While the Central Coast does have large areas of Council Reserve, National Park and State Forest, many of the habitat corridors between these reserves are on these private properties. Many of these properties are owned by people who are time poor or lack knowledge for how to properly treat these infestations. Other properties are owned by retirees who are unsure they have the physical fitness to tackle these infestations themselves.
The solution
The opportunity arose through the Private Land Conservation Matters program to run an educational workshop on treatment of woody weeds on the Central Coast. Privet was chosen as the target weed for this workshop, with a specific focus on techniques, strategies and tools which reduce the physical effort required to treat woody weeds and make the task more approachable.
The workshop was structured around 4 stations run by an experienced Bush Regenerator, each with a different technique or tool to display. 20 attendees were split into 4 groups and rotated through these stations, gaining practical experience treating Privet and learning from the Bush Regenerators. The tools/techniques in focus were the Tree Popper, Injecta 400, Drill and Fill, and a final station which covered the theory on how to approach a Privet infestation without working beyond your ability to maintain the regenerating area. The workshop finished with a lunch that allowed attendees to network with each other and allowing some informal question time with the Bush Regenerators.
The impact
Feedback from the event was very positive, the 20 attendees left the workshop more confident in treating Privet and regenerating the native bushland on their properties. This is likely to result in more motivation to get out and treat the Privet infestation on their properties and increased success from the efforts made.
Learnings
Common themes in the feedback from the workshop showed that the attendees liked the hands-on nature of the learning, along with the variety of methods and the chance to network with other landholders.
Key facts
- Privet and Lantana are major weeds on the Central Coast
- The PLCM project supported a woody weed control workshop
- 20 attendees learned how to treat Privet, along with some labour saving tools to use