Scouts to the rescue
Sustaining the Williams Valley Landcare gets a boost from Scouts
Capacity building - LEP028-002
The issue
Sustaining the Williams Valley Landcare’s small team of volunteers have recently taken on a new site at Myall Creek, Dungog. Myall Creek joins the Williams River immediately downstream of the other two riparian sites in which they have been working for several years. This section of Myall Creek has remarkable diversity of remnant indigenous plant species lining the banks and provides a good scaffold in which to work from. The biggest challenge at this site is not to revegetate from scratch but rather remove the impediments to the gallery rainforest naturally restoring itself and becoming a resilient ecosystem.
The solution
Over 130 Scouts from across the Hunter and Central Coast joined Sustaining the Williams Valley Landcare to tackle weeds and rubbish along Myall Creek in Dungog in the summer school part of the Scout Corroboree 2026. We worked closely with staff at Dungog Shire Council to organise a pickup of rubbish and green weed waste following the event. Without that collaboration, we couldn’t have achieved the massive clean up that took place- piles of rubber tyres, car parts, batteries, plastic and more.
The impact
The team from Sustaining the Williams Valley Landcare led students on a riparian adventure, discovering which plants are native, which are not and what rubbish ends up in our creeks. They pitched in to remove 3 key weeds- Morning Glory, Balloon Vine, and Wandering Trad as well as the rubbish mentioned above. Several students remarked that they ‘can’t wait to get their Landcare badge’. They also took time before going back to camp to observe their surroundings quietly and write a poem about the experience, making it a well rounded, valuable day for all.
