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Feature: Invasive Species

Eyes wide shut
Funding the bitou bashers
The Great Grose Weed Walk
Saving the natives
Bullies invading the corridors

Funding the bitou bashers - NPA Mid North Coast Branch

SUE BAKER is the NPA Mid North Coast Branch Bush Regeneration Projects Coordinator,
and a keen bitou-basher.

She discovered how to raise funds to help combat the scourge of the coast. Bitou bush, a South African native, was introduced to the north coast mainly through its use to restabilise sand dunes after mining. With one plant able to seed 40 acres alone, the spread of this scourge is so great that it is listed nationally as an ecologically threatening process. Once it gets a hold, bitou out-competes our wonderful native plants. On a recent walk to Hat Head National Park, branch members were horrified to see the hold that bitou has taken after severe fire a few years ago, with a few sick banksias struggling to poke their heads above a sea of bitou. As a lover of the bush, personally it makes me want to weep. What can we do? We can keep doing our bit in our own local area.

Bitou bush is the scourge of many NSW coastal areas.

Mid North Coast Branch has been working on bitou at Diamond Head (Crowdy Bay National Park) for 26 years, during which time close to 204,000 plants of various sizes have been removed. Imagine what this spectacular headland would look like now without this effort! But more than that, while some native birds eat the fruits, the nectar-feeding birds and animals would have lost their food sources; so too would the migratory birds, which depend on fruits of the littoral rainforest.
In the last six years, the project has progressed in leaps and bounds. We introduced techniques known as AT and DC (Arm Twisting and Downright Coercion) to get more volunteers to our twice-annual bitou bashes. This enabled us to get the headland infestations under control - now all they need is a 12 monthly 'mop up'. I tell our volunteers that they will go to heaven for all their hard work, but long-time member and botanist Roy Pullen tells me there are weeds in heaven too!
Funding to beat the curse
In 1999 it was suggested to us by NPWS that the curse would never be really beaten unless funding was obtained to enable aerial spraying of the seed pool on the inaccessible cliff sides. We are now on our seventh Envirofund grant and I am eternally grateful for the wonders it has enabled us to achieve. The project was expanded to link up with our other site at Dunbogan, forming a Diamond Head to Dunbogan Habitat Corridor Rehabilitation Project. Next we began attacking the seed pool on the dunes to the north of Diamond Head with aerial spraying. With the local Council then joining the project, spraying has been extended along the beach outside the park boundary, so now a 10 km stretch of beach is being treated.
Funds enable us to employ specialist contractors to do on-ground work, and at the moment one contractor is helping bitou removal from an 8 km strip of littoral rainforest. We are over the moon with the natural regeneration that has occurred on all sites. To date we have attained about $85,000 of funding and the in-kind contribution of labour and cash from NPA, NPWS and Hastings Council is close to $200,000. As applying for a grant is a daunting task the first time, it is best to get help from someone such as a Landcare Coordinator. After that it becomes easier each time. It helps enormously to keep copies of everything, especially the hand-drawn maps that are submitted with each application and to maintain well-organised files and records. The secrets to the success of a project are determination, commitment, funding, thorough planning, meticulous follow up - and an amiable treasurer to do the book work and pay the bills!
If only…
NPWS Ranger Cathy Mardell and I despair at times. We would desperately like to attack the massive infestation on the southern side of Diamond Head but are limited by the need for detailed and time-consuming follow-up. This is the single biggest hindrance to progress over large areas. Just one missed plant will, over a period of years, start a new infestation. Cathy is concerned that she'll be old enough to retire before we get to the southern side and we know that every year that it's left, it will get worse. It's a case of if, if, if. If only we had 50 volunteers we could set the world on fire! If only I had 10 lives to attain more funding and do more follow up myself! If only I could do something about the rest of the mid north coast! If only there were Landcare groups in those areas not being weeded and if only more people cared in general.
Other invasive enemies
At the Dunbogan end of our project are other invasive enemies. Over a six year period we have battled to remove an estimated 80 tonnes of prickly pear! How this infestation began I have no idea, but I suspect that it became so prolific because salt air toughens up the hard leaves even further, making them resistant to the effects of the cactoblastis beetle. It's an absolute menace to deal with and the local pharmacy has made a fortune from selling us tweezers!
But even worse than this is the yellow flowering winter Senna (you may know it as Cassia), of which we have a forest! This too is invading our part of the coast. Senna produces dozens of sticky seeds in pods that grow in the thousands so that huge clumps of seedlings come up. As seedlings can mature to flowering stage in less than 12 months, we have to race against time when an infestation is removed to get them out before the next season. When this sometimes bores us to screaming point, we go and punish ourselves further by removing a bit more prickly pear. But it's a joy to work among the chirping of the hundreds of little birds that have repopulated the site and the gleeful laughing of the kookaburras that come to watch us and to be constantly seeing tiny natives poking their heads up. Over the years, where weed removal has left almost bare sand, we have watched thick and lush vegetation gradually develop.
It's all terribly rewarding and satisfying. I urge any of you who love the bush and have a few hours to spare to become involved. And finally-I never miss an opportunity for advertising-our next bitou bash is on Sunday May 7 and we also hold regular working bees at Dunbogan. If any members are visiting the area we'd love you to join us. I can be contacted through NPA Head Office.