Supporting Local Guides to manage Pittosporum

Supporting Local Guides to manage Pittosporum

Bebrue Guide Camp ground at Mittagong is a Land for Wildlife property. Earlier this year we were approached by the local guide coordinator about a problem with weed management at the camp. The grounds cover nearly 9 hectares of high quality bushland which is being invaded from the south by pittosporum. While pittosporum is a native plant it normally only represents about 10% of tree cover in Mt Gibraltar woodland ecosystems. In the last 20 years it has become a more successful species. It is behaving as a weed and creating a dense canopy cover that blocks sunlight from understory plants and leads to a monoculture. Today we showed a small group of guides how to identify and remove small plants. Jen Slattery also set up an i-naturalist project for the area. The guides plan on continuing the work started today as part of their service requirements.