The Lake Parramatta Bushcare group meet twice a month to help restore the bushland of Lake Parramatta Reserve.
Volunteers of the Lake Parramatta Bushcare group have been carefully restoring Lake Parramatta Reserve since the early 1990s and continue to meet twice a month, at two different sites within the reserve. The group's activities include controlling invasive plants, removing rubbish and planting native seedlings.
Lake Parramatta Reserve is the largest surviving bushland remnant and has the highest diversity of native flora and fauna in the Parramatta Local Government Area. The remnant vegetation is representative of the shale / sandstone environment which covered the area prior to urban development. Lake Parramatta Reserve also contains the Endangered Ecological Community (EEC) known as Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest, of which only 0.5 percent its original extent remains intact.
As one of the main threats to the EEC in Lake Parramatta Reserve is weed invasion, the bushcare group's efforts have been imperative to saving this fragile and at-risk community.
Fauna surveys in 2016-17 identified approximately 65 native species of birds, 18 mammals, 14 reptiles, 7 amphibians and the threatened invertebrate Dural Woodland Land Snail in Lake Parramatta Reserve. A number of these species are listed as endangered or vulnerable under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995.
The on-ground work undertaken by the bushcrae volunteers directly benefits the icon species of Lake Parramatta Reserve: the Sugar glider and the Powerful Owl.