2024 Yearly wrap-up

As summer arrives and the end of the year approaches as fast as the grass grows, it’s a perfect time to reflect on and celebrate 2024. And what a wonderful and busy year it has been across the Upper Goulburn Landcare Network. The year was full of so many meaningful projects and enjoyable events, from the hundreds of trees planted for National Tree Planting Day to the annual Kids Teaching Kids Conference at the Yea Wetlands, and plenty of events held by the wonderful Landcare groups in our network. The impact of 2024 will ripple out for many years to come.

Upper Goulburn Intrepid Landcare 

Upper Goulburn Intrepid Landcare group kicked their year off with a unique, canoe and weeding event at Polly McQuinns, Strathbogie. With nearly a dozen young and energetic participants they tackled St Johns wort before canoeing on the lake and sharing a BBQ. UGIL are planning another canoeing event in early 2025 so keep your eyes peeled.

For National Tree Planting Day UGIL planted more the 500 plants at Old Josephine cutting in Alexandra and hosted more than 6 other events this year. UGIL continue to build momentum and engage so many young people in Landcare.

Kids Teaching Kids 

The Annual Kids Teaching Kids Conference was a huge success for another year. With 10 groups from 8 schools gathering at the Yea Wetlands on a lovely spring day. The students took so much pride in teaching the other schools about their topic, that they had researched for months and became experts in. The main presentation was a wildlife display and talk by Black Snake, The students came up close and personal to an array of native mammals, reptiles and even a dingo. The team is looking forward to another amazing Kids Teaching Kids Conference in 2025.

National Schools Tree Planting Day

On the 26th of July, National Schools Tree Planting Day was a huge success across the UGLN with four schools participating and the students planting more than 1400 trees together. Yea Primary and Sacred Heart Primary returned to the site they both planted at last year along Boundary Creek. After admiring how much the plants from last year had grown they continued the revegetation of the riparian woodland in Yea. Meanwhile Alexandra Primary planted close to 500 plants along UT Creek. Despite the brisk temperature the students worked together incredibly well to plant and guard all the plants. Kinglake Primary continued their revegetation project on site at school adding another 80 plants to their previous efforts. All the students should be so proud of their efforts and the positive impact they have created. 

Landcare Koala Presentation.

Over 40 landcarers attended a wonderful and very informative koala talk in Yarck by local koala expert Lynne Wallace-Greenberg. Lynne has worked at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, and she currently works with Koala Smart, a koala conservation and education program.

Participants learnt about:

• How & where koalas live.
• Their favourite trees and how you can improve their habitat.
• Threats that koalas face and how we can help.
• How to report koala sightings on the KoalaMap database, and many other interesting facts about koalas.

Thank you to the ladies from the Yarck CWA for the great lunch.

This event was funded by the Victorian State Government Victorian Landcare Grants.

Rail Trail Ecological Burn.

In autumn the UGLN, with the assistance of the Merton Landcare Group and Merton CFA members, carried out an ecological burn in a significant native grassy woodland area along the rail trail at Merton.

The burning of the grassy woodland helps encourage new growth and improves the health of the native grasses. 

Burning is especially important for Kangaroo Grass tussocks as they can die-off when the plants are smothered out by dead plant material. Burning also helps regenerate the native herbs, groundcovers and wildflowers present in these special areas.

The area has responded very well and over spring we had a wonderful display of wildflowers including chocolate and bulbine lilies, milkmaids, sun orchids and onion orchids. The burns have been supported by the Mansfield Shire Council and funded by VicTrack. 

 

It has been another great year across the Upper Goulburn Landcare Network thanks to all the contributions and hard work from all the wonderful people involved. Thank you for all your passion and hard work! We are excited to see what 2025 will behold, until then have a lovely Christmas and New Year