Last Landcare for 2010

Sun 5th December 2010 was planned as a Christmas breakfast at Cockpit to end the year on. Unfortunately some of our team were away and others had things on but the 5 adults and 2 kids that made it enjoyed a big cookup feast regardless. Jimbo got his mower out and tried to finish the last of the mowing needed in C3 but unfortunately broke a belt and didnt get it quite done.

I would like to thank all of the people who have supported Landcare in 2010. To our members who toiled weeding, mowing and planting - thank you. To Peter Davidson - a supportive conservator, Tim Sheridan - a supportive Environment Minister, to Greenways, Norfolk Online and Radio VL2NI - thanks all yorlye.

We'll be back in action in February 2011. Merry Christmas all yorlye and all the best for a healthy, wealthy and prosperous 2011.

Best Wishes
Lou
Louise Tavener - President

Sat 27 Nov working bee at Cockpit

It was decided that the working bee on Sat 27th Nov would be another mowing day to tidy up the other end of our reserve area C3 & C4. Unfortunately there wasnt many people who showed up to help but we did well considering. Thank you to Dave Porter who came with his whipper snipper and worked on C3, Jimbo who brought the tractor & slasher and mowed Ruby's Glen, Dick Massicks on the muttock and me on the pruner.  Thanks fe ucklun yorlye
Lou Tavener  President

Dave Porter waist deep in weeds in C3

C3 area

Jimbo slashing Rubys Glen. Dick up on the hills digging out weeds

Jimbo

13 Nov 2010 Working bee to cleanup C1 & C2 areas

At last we have had a good week of weather and a sunny weekend! We had a good rollup today to mow and tidy C1 and C2 areas at Cockpit. Thankyou to Dick Massicks, Dave Porter, Laurel Quintal, Ben Hayes, Luke Adams, Don Brian, Jim, Brianna & me Taveners and George & Ada Nebauer. Thankyou to Jimbo for his mower that made short work of the long grass

                                            George hard at work

Jimbo mowing

Ada

Luke & Ben digging out weeds

Dave on the whippersnipper

The team in action

Laurel on a whippersnipper too

Dick follows Jimbo to remove stones etc

Starting on the other side of the creek in C1

C2 mowed

Ada & Brianna near a pine we planted today

Ada & Brianna - great mates

                                                                      Cuppa & Cake to finish on and a well deserved sit down rest

The finished job

What a difference a tidy up makes

Thanks fe ucklun yorlye

Lou Tavener  - President

Oct 2010 Not good weather for working bees

Due to the bad non-Spring like weather that plagued much of October; we scheduled and rescheduled working bees without success. As the areas we work in at Cockpit are steep, it becomes too slippery and dangerous to work in after rain. We had rain showers and high winds and the month slipped by without us getting a working bee in.

Dick Massicks & I did take some time to walk over the entire reserve area that we manage and came to a decision that we would need to use much of the money that we have fundraised for to employ someone to poison the woody weeds that are re-emerging after being cut off previously or coming up from seed. It is impossible to dig these weeds out especially on the steep terrain and we felt it was best to employ someone experienced to do it for us. George Nebauer has been employed to do this for us - he is one of our members and is a great worker who is experienced in this field. Thankyou George

Louise Tavener  - President

22/10/10 Landcare applies for Toon Trust funding

Landcare applied today for funding from the Toon Trust.
 This proposal is Stage 1 of a Project aimed at increasing native forest habitat on the Island by 10% through re-establishing the native coastal forest in Ball Bay Reserve, one of the largest areas of public land outside the National Park. Degradation of native habitat through land clearing, invasion by woody weeds (which today form 100% cover over more than 70% of the Reserve) and grazing, has destroyed the original native coastal forest, resulting in the disappearance from this part of the Island of almost all native bird species and threatened the local extinction of endemic plant species such as Euphorbia norfolkiana.
Luckily, though significantly reduced in diversity and extent, a small number of native trees and shrubs remain with potential as natural seed sources to augment rehabilitation planting.

Rehabilitation of native forest habitat through this large-scale (for Norfolk Island) project will directly engage the community, providing skills and impetus to community environmental and landcare groups, participation by local land owners, and demonstrate how native habitat can successfully be re-established on other, privately owned weed infested areas of the Island.
Large areas of Ball Bay Reserve were fenced to exclude cattle in the early 1970’s to enable re-afforestation and in the late 1980’s the majority of the Reserve was fenced to enable a number of Commonwealth-funded (Bushcare and Green Corps) environment projects to be undertaken. Unfortunately, since that time cattle have been allowed to roam through the Reserve with significant damage to remnant native vegetation and to planting areas.
Re-establishing native forest over the majority of the Reserve is the key management strategy of the Ball Bay Reserve Plan of Management. The re-habilitation of native forest habitat is a priority of the Norfolk Island Threatened Species Recovery Plan(EPBC Act).
This Stage 1 Project will enable grazing of the majority of Ball Bay Reserve by stock to be controlled. This is essential to the re-establishment of native forest habitat in Ball Bay Reserve.

If we are successful; The Norfolk Island Forestry department will partner Landcare in this application by the supply of fence posts, labour,timber for cattle yards, post & rail fence and gates, a cattlestop,pump, water tank & trough for stock and signs.

Planting day at Cockpit Sun 26 Sept 2010

We had a perfect day for planting this morning with it being overcast and not too hot and with showers forecast for the next few days. Thanks to Jimbo who backed his truck with the trees and equipment halfway up the slope; it wasnt such a hard slog to carry the trees into their positions for planting. Thankyou to Jimbo Tavener and Wayne Derby who got on the hole borers and Alison & Lindsay Ford, Ben Hayes, Lou Tavener, Dick Massicks and Allan Tavener who got in and planted the 55 trees who had. Thankyou too to George Nebauer who got in and whippersnipped the low area and driveway - it looks great and it wasnt easy with the long grass throughout.  We must also thank the Forestry Dept who supplied us the trees at no cost.

Ignore the date shown on the pics - Jimbo's camera wasnt set right

Sept 10 Next planting day

The next working bee will be at Cockpit will be Sun 26 Sept 8.30am. This will be another planting day. We have around 55 trees to go in the ground so we should only be there a couple of hours if we get a few to help. The area being planted is steep and you need to be sure footed. We'll supply trees, gel and fertiliser as well as the post hole borers.
If you can't handle the steep slope there is a lot of mowing, whippersnipping etc needed on the lower slopes if anyone wants to do that while we plant. Morning tea afterwards

Planting Day at Cockpit Sun 5th Sept 2010

2010

Well at last we had a fine weekend to get on with our planned plantings which had been delayed for several weeks. The area being planted was real 'billy-goat' country and very steep. Despite this 55 mixed Norfolk native trees were planted. Thankyou to Dick, Wayne, Luke, Laurel, Lou, Lexi & Brianna who made up our small but effective team!

Planting days upcoming Sept 10

While we have the showers around - it is planned that the next 2 working bees... Sun 5th Sept 9am and Sun 26 Sept 9am will be spent planting trees within C1 of  Cockpit in the Cascade Reserve. We have around 120 trees to plant so we'll aim for about 60 each time. Helpers always welcome - we'll have a hole borer going but if you have spades or shovels they'll be useful too. Thankyou to the Norfolk Island Administration for the trees. We'll supply fertiliser and water crystals. We'll finish with morning tea afterwards. Hope to see you there

Norfolk Landcare to be a partnering organisation for the Duke of Edinborough program

Norfolk Landcare has agreed to be one of the partnering organisations for the Duke of Edinborough program which will begin in Norfolk Island in the coming weeks. We are very excited to be a part of the program and have started planning environment projets and initiatives which might be suitable.

What plans for the rest of 2010 in Norfolk's environment work?

Landcare has plenty to keep us busy for the rest of 2010. Providing the showers of rain continue and we don't get a prolonged dry patch; the next 3-4 meets will be taken up with further tree planting at Cockpit in the C1 region. For ease of identification; some time back we named the different areas C1 is the closest section to Harpers Road and the two bridges along to the ridge. C2 is from this area around to the bank above the creek. C3 is the stretch on the other side of the ridge down to the next creek corner and C4 is the section around this corner to where the fence ends on the slopes above Cockpit waterfall. R1 is Rubys Glen. There is plenty of maintenance of needed in all sections of Cockpit so as it drys off we will get into that.







The Conservator Peter Davidson has kindly agreed to add the Headstone Monument area (which we rehabilitated in partnership with Westpac ) to the rest of the Headstone Reserve and from now on it will be mown by the Forestry Dept when they do the rest of the area. Thankyou Peter and the Forestry team for taking this over.






Sometime down the track we have agreed to assist in planting within the Ball Bay Reserve. This is unlikely to be this year as there is plenty of fencing and clearing to get done beforehand. We are very happy that work will eventually be done in this reserve. Around 2007 we put a proposal to the Government for the rehabilitation of the coastal end of this reserve. In discussions with the Boral representative who has bulk tanks in the area; a suggestion was made that a cattlestop with gates should be put adjacent to the end of the fuel depot tanks and fencing done to the boundaries either side. It was suggested that eventually Norfolk will be made to comply with Australian regulations for safe discharge of fuels and that we may need to provide a closed port when fuel or gas was being discharged from the carrier ships. It would also allow us to block cattle from the very badly eroded slopes and to do some beautification planting. We proposed planting a line of pines down the seaward side edge of te old road. The steep slope from the old road to the new one below and the new road to the base of the hill would be planted with flax and with pandanus (which used to be found there years ago). Random trees would be planted elsewhere at agreeable locations. The Gas Centre was also agreeable to assist in funding an improved viewing platform. We had some adjoining land owners willing to do work on their land sections at the same time to compliment the work we were going to do.






The new Conservator/Planning Officer (at that time a combined position) stated that he and the Environment Minister felt that our organisation already had enough on and they didnt think we would be able to adequately continue the maintenance it would require. The changes proposed were low maintenance - their reasons never rang true at all. They would not give us permission to do the project requested and it went nowhere. The area today is still in the same state - industrial look around the foreshore; inadequate and unsafe viewing platform and hillsides in a terrible state of erosion.


Hopefully this will change when the whole reserve is fenced and work commences.

Aug 2010 National Tree Day

It doesnt take long for National Tree Day to roll around again. Fortunately this year we have had lots of rain showers and the long dry is over. The dry caused us to lose about 75% of the trees planted in the last National Tree Day. It was decided that we would try and replace the trees lost by a public planting to celebrate Planet Earth's National Tree Day.

Around 25 of members and the public came for the plantings. A total of 100 trees were put in the ground. Thankyou to all who assisted in this event with digging holes, carrying trees and planting. The area planted was very steep and being a mountain goat would have had its advantages. Nonetheless; the holes were dug and trees planted. Well done yorlye