Upper Dunnies Landcare
Peri-urban community action for catchment regeneration
Capacity building
The issue
Dunns Creek, on the southern outskirts of Forster, flows directly to Wallis Lake - the keystone of the local economy, which relies heavily on tourism, oyster farming and fishing. Like many peri-urban catchments it is under great ecological stress, with the common combination of heavy historical clearing, ongoing development pressure, high volume and high nutrient urban run-off, and increasingly rampant garden escape weeds.
The upper catchment riparian area, although heavily disturbed, has small areas of remnant vegetation, and borders on Booti Booti National Park. Its natural regeneration potential is being significantly limited by weeds – both established widespread weeds and relatively new garden escapee threats.
The solution
Residents of the Upper Dunns Creek catchment are mostly on small acreages, and many have the creek passing through or bordering their properties. Led by keen local Deb Tuckerman, a group was formed under the auspices of Karuah & Great Lakes Landcare – Upper Dunn’s Creek Landcare Group, which quickly became affectionately known as the Upper Dunnies. A start-up roundtable session in June 2024 showed a strong shared vision to manage the landscape in the best way possible and celebrate it, including a healthier Dunns Creek, and they planned to regularly get together for working bees on each other’s places as well as looking to fire up more of their neighbours to get on board. After a couple of get-togethers with their Local Landcare Coordinator attending, looking at strategy, plant ID and weed management techniques, they were chugging away under their own steam.
The impact
The group has already made a good impact on woody weeds in the upper catchment. Previous efforts had greatly reduced Lantana, but now they have taken some strides in managing rampant Cassia, and they have had zero tolerance for emerging woody weeds like Sweet Viburnum in the riparian areas. Problem garden plants are being eradicated from group members’ gardens, and they are working on raising awareness of the garden escape weed problem in the neighbourhood.
A new project is to work on a public section of creek that sits in a road reserve, with support from MidCoast Council.
Learnings
Participatory planning for a shared vision gave the group direction
It’s important to prioritise - the group quickly realised it couldn’t tackle every weed all at once
Communication and review - it was key to find a way of keeping everyone informed and allowing information to be exchanged. Find a way that works for your group.
Low knowledge base for new Landcarers - members have had a steep learning curve on what’s native and what isn’t.
It’s important to keep it fun and social – regular brief busy bees followed by a good morning tea have worked well
Key facts
- 9 properties actively involved
- A further 3 properties welcoming volunteers
- Approx 3.5ha of riparian vegetation on small acreages in the upper catchment targeted