Projects
Brunswick Valley Landcare regularly applies for grants to run on-ground projects. Below are details of some of our current and past projects.
Climate Resilient Landscapes
Brunswick Valley Landcare are excited to launch Climate Resilient Landscapes – A Planting Guide for the Northern Rivers Region. The 40-page booklet will help landowners in the Northern Rivers to adapt their gardens and properties to the impacts of climate change.
A complement to the very popular My Local Native Garden Guide, Climate Resilient Landscapes provides tips on designing and planning a garden using native plants that are resilient in our changing climate.
If you would you like to see some of the plants included in the guide in real life – head over to Brunswick Valley Heritage Park, Maslen Arboretum in Mullumbimby and you can visit the Climate Resilient demonstration garden planted and cared for by volunteers. In these photos you can see the life of one of the gardens over the past 2 years – it’s had to deal with a lot!
This project has been supported by funding from the NSW Government through it’s ‘Increasing Resilience to Climate Change’ (IRCC) community grants.
Annual Mothers Day Community Planting
This year will be the 12th Annual Mother’s day planting. Since 2014 BVL has partnered with the amazing people behind the Mullum Music Festival to bring a fun day of planting, music and food. Each year we get hundreds of people turn up to plant thousands of trees. The event is on Mother’s Day and has happened on both public and private property in and around Mullumbimby.
Broken Head Environmental Trust Project
In October 2022 Brunswick Valley Landcare were successful in receiving funding from the Environmental Trust for Stage 3 of our Broken Head Coastal Corridor project.
Stage 3 aims to improve condition and connectivity of a critical wildlife corridor from high biodiversity areas of coastal Broken Head to Coopers Shoot ridge, including the isolated Hogans Bluff Big Scrub rainforest remnant. Working on seven properties in Midgen Creek catchment, Byron Shire, the project will include fencing, assisted regeneration and plantings to improve water quality, create and improve habitat and linkages to support threatened species. Increased ecosystem health and connectivity will in turn help to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The project expands previous successful Environmental Trust funded projects covering stage 1 (2014-2017) and stage 2 (2018-2021). These projects inspired other landholders to become involved in this new project.
This project has been assisted by the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust.
Ridge to River: Mooibal Spur Environmental Trust Project
The Mooibal Spur ET Project ran from 2019 to 2023 working to restore public and private land through planting and bush regeneration and to engage the community through workshops and working bees.
The Tallowood Ridge locality group was formed and local residents came together to plant a Themeda grassland, learn weed ID, weed treatment techniques, responsible pet ownership and monitor the nest boxes that were installed as part of the project. In the final monitoring, 18 of the 20 nest boxes had evidence of occupancy with an Australian Barn Owl, Boobook Owl, Galah’s, Eastern Rosellas, Sugar Gliders, Wood ducks and possums.
The Mooiball Spur is an important wildlife corridor connecting the Brunswick River in the town of Mullumbimby up to the escarpment and Mount Jerusalem National Park. The area is included in Byron Council’s Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management as it has a small resident koala population.
This project has been assisted by the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust.
Wildlife Safe Havens
Over the past 3 years Brunswick Valley Landcare has been running its Wildlife Safe Havens project. It started with a WIRES grant in 2020 that enabled site visits to guide landholders in habitat creation and nest box installations on 30 properties. We were then successful in receiving further funding from Landcare Australia to focus specifically on gliders. We also ran a silent auction for painted nest boxes, a crowd funding campaign and received a generous donation from Santos Organics. This has enabled us to deliver a multi-year, multi-species project.
Highlights of the project have been installing 6 specially designed hollows for the endangered Glossy Black cockatoo, 60 artificial hollows installed targeting gliders, spotlighting events, recovery of felled trees to make hunks of trunk habitat hollows, continually monitoring 85 nest boxes and habitat solutions that BVL have installed throughout the shire since 2016.
But by far the best highlight was the discovery of an endangered Great Glider and joey, discovered in a property in Main Arm, the first recorded sighting for over 20 years.