Growing trees

The Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife Resilience program began with the Bushfire Recovery project in 2020 as a rapid response initiative after the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires. The core of the program is supporting the development of local provenance plant nurseries. The nurseries are spread far and wide across bushfire impacted areas in New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia. The Hawkesbury Community Nursery was the third nursery to be funded by the program, with the installation of sheds, an irrigation system, water tanks and toilets, and the purchase of other smaller items, completed in 2021.

All the plant nurseries together have committed to growing 550,000 trees and over 300,000 trees have been distributed to land managers to date. Many of the trees are going to ecological restoration sites which FNPW is funding across target areas in Wollemi National to Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, Gondwana Rainforest and NSW North Coast, Kosciuszko National Park and Alpine areas, South Coast to East Gippsland in Victoria, and the Mounty Lofty to Kangaroo Island Connection in South Australia.

The trees provided contribute to ecological resilience in the landscape, provide wildlife habitat, contribute to biodiversity conservation, provide clean air and water, and draw carbon from the atmosphere. The Landscape Resilience program also supports the development of seed banks to ensure appropriate, local provenance plant supply and a hands on community education program about revegetation and ecological restoration.

It’s exciting that the Hawkesbury Community Nursery has committed to supplying 75,000 plants over a four year period, with potentially more to come in future. Trees are being supplied to local landholders and ecological restoration grant projects such as that run by Wollombi Valley Landcare. Their project focused on repairing a number of eroding riparian sites which were left without vegetation cover after the bushfires. This important work was completed on sites along waterways including Wollombi Brook and Watagan Creek. The group ran an inspiring planting day over the Easter break where local landholders and community members learnt the correct way to plant the trees, using reusable tree guards.

Individual landholders and community organisations are eligible to apply for the grants, valued up to $5,000 for projects within Local Govt Areas affected by the 2019/20 bushfires. Priority will be given to project that are:

• planting 1,000 or more trees sourced from an FNPW bushfire recovery nursery.
• show community or volunteer engagement within the project activities.
• undertake work over a 3ha minimum area, reinforcing areas of existing native vegetation in good condition, including areas adjacent to protected areas, within vegetation corridors and/or riparian zones, or which provide habitat stepping stones.
• support collaboration with Traditional Owners and Indigenous organisations and the engagement of Aboriginal contractors.

 

See the full details at www.fnpw.org.au/grant/bushfire-restoration-grants.

Sandy Eager, Landscape Resilience Manager at FNPW is available to answer any questions and offer guidance with your application: sandy@fnpw.org.au