Category: News

Helping schoolchildren to create a living classroom.

Eco Warriors Australia, in partnership with Ecology & Restoration Australia, is excited to announce a new program that we are running called Planting the Seed (PtS). 

The PtS program gives school students hands-on experience in revegetating areas of degraded or damaged native vegetation.  Students also learn about the cultural heritage values of the plants and animals at their site and in the local area.

The PtS program teaches students how to collect local native plant seeds, propagate and care for seedlings, prepare sites for planting, use native plants to revegetate sites and maintain sites after planting to ensure success.

Students use simple data collection tools to monitor revegetation success, and to record wildlife that the native vegetation attracts (“citizen science”).

The PtS program is innovative in several ways:

• Students are involved in the entire process of revegetation, rather than only including students at the planting stage
• Focus on sustainability throughout the project (eg. using recycled materials for plant propagation to reduce waste)
• Strong cultural heritage focus to provide a link and improve understanding of the cultural history of native plants and wildlife found in the local area. 

Please see our FAQ or contact us if your school would like to get involved.

We are thrilled to share that we have successfully secured funding from the Yarra Ranges Grants for Community 2023 round to undertake a really exciting project which will result in the installation of wildlife canopy bridges in storm damaged areas of the Yarra Ranges.

We are delighted to be partnering with our friends at Ecology & Restoration Australia on this project, who already have multiple similar projects ongoing. Their expertise in the scientific design aspects of the project, and provision of experienced arborists to install the bridges, will be invaluable.

The most exciting aspect of this project will be the input of the community in multiple ways, from helping to build sections of the canopy bridges, to helping to process images and identify animals on monitoring cameras.

Rope bridges will be of a simple design that anyone can help to create – you can read more about this process here, through the ERA website.

We will be liaising with council and Parks Victoria to determine the sites that will benefit from the installation of rope bridges; species which may benefit from the bridges, depending on location, include the endangered Southern Greater Glider, the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum, the vulnerable Brush-tailed Phascogale and Eastern Pygmy-Possums.

If you are interested in getting involved in this project in any capacity, please contact us at admin@ecowarriorsaustralia.org!

Read more about the successful projects here.

Our first Crowdfunding Campaign is live at Give Easy!
The Southern Greater Glider needs your help!

The Greater Glider, Petauroides volans, is Australia’s largest gliding possum. Around the size of a large cat, this adorable marsupial closely resembles the ‘good’ Gremlin ‘Gizmo’.  Greater Gliders are strict folivores – that means they only eat the leaves of Eucalyptus trees – and are pretty picky about which leaves, too! During the day, they den in the hollows of the largest, highest, oldest trees in the forest – which they rely upon for survival and breeding.

Unfortunately, the Federal Government recently ‘uplisted’ the Greater Glider, in terms of it’s conservation status, from ‘Threatened’ to ‘Endangered’, across it’s range. The biggest threat to Greater Gliders is loss of habitat – in the form of hollow-bearing trees, and – to a lesser extent – food trees.

Recent research shows that Greater Gliders in Australia are actually at least three sub-species. The species in Victoria is known as the Southern Greater Glider – Petauroides volans subsp. volans. Since 2020, this species has been hit by multiple events which have impacted its habitat and, therefore, it’s ability to persist. These events include the Black Summer bushfires, which destroyed large tracts of habitat in East Gippsland, and the storms of 2021 – in which many hollow-bearing trees were lost across Victoria.

With the assistance and partnership of ecologists, our fundraising program aims to create supplementary artificial hollows in key Greater Glider habitat where hollow-bearing trees have been lost due to land-use change and/or extreme weather events.

Artificial hollows will be created using tools including chainsaws and the Hollowhog. The Hollowhog is a wood carving tool specifically designed to create habitat for hollow-dependant wildlife; it can efficiently create large internal cavities through small entry holes in standing trees, in both living and dead wood, and there is no other damage to the tree’s cambium during the carving process. Using a combination of methods, and a skilled arboriculture team, we can create hollows that are both big enough, and high enough in the canopy, to suit Greater Gliders.

The construction of a single large hollow suitable for a Greater Glider costs about AU$400. We commit to installing one hollow for every $400 donation received.

Additionally, you will receive our quarterly newsletter which will contain information on hollow installations and post-installation occupancy monitoring (you can opt out at any time).

Visit the campaign landing page to find out more or donate.

We are very exited to announce that we have been successful in securing funding for a volunteer based initiative that will survey and assess forgotten nest boxes across National Parks in Victoria, and provide species occupation data, and repair or removal of broken boxes.

This project has been funded by a grant from the Parks Victoria Volunteering Innovation Fund and we are partnering with our friends at Ecology & Restoration Australia, who will manage the field based surveys and data collection.

Nest boxes are a common conservation tool across Australia, installed primarily to support native hollow-using fauna, particularly in areas where natural tree hollows are limited. Nest boxes are installed by a variety of groups and individuals, such as ‘Friends of…’ groups, school groups and others, and a many are installed in various National Parks across Victoria.

However, ongoing monitoring of installed nest boxes, to determine by occupation by target or other species, and any maintenance issues, is often challenging due to lack of both financial resources and personnel.

In 2020, a published survey determined that there are more than 10,000 nest boxes installed across Australia, and, for various reasons, nearly a third of these boxes are not monitored (Macak 2020). 

Additionally, nest boxes have a finite lifespan in-situ of usually around 10 years, and maintenance issues such as broken attachments and infestation by pests such as European Honeybees can influence their effectiveness (Lindenmayer et al. 2009).

This project will utilise volunteers to monitor at least 500 nest boxes previously installed on Parks Victoria managed land. If appropriate, other unmonitored wildlife structures, such as glider/koala poles or rope bridges will also be surveyed and assessed.

Utilising volunteers to monitor and maintain existing created habitat, such as nest boxes, is an innovative and new idea, and will also work to take the pressure off Parks Victoria staff to monitor and maintain existing nest boxes installed by other groups.

The project will also offer volunteers a unique opportunity to observe and collect data on native species utilising nest boxes.

If you’d like to volunteer for this project – please get in touch via our Contact page!

References:

Lindenmayer, D. B., Welsh, A., Donnelly, C., Crane, M., Michael, D., Macgregor, C., … & Gibbons, P. (2009). Are nest boxes a viable alternative source of cavities for hollow-dependent animals? Long-term monitoring of nest box occupancy, pest use and attrition. Biological Conservation, 142(1), 33-42.

Macak, P. V. (2020). Nest boxes for wildlife in Victoria: an overview of nest box distribution and use. Victorian Naturalist, The, 137(1), 4-14.

We are thrilled to announce that we have received funding, along with our partners at Petaltail Ecological Collaborations, to undertake much needed research on the endangered saltmarsh plant the bushy peppercress, Lepidium desvauxii.

This research has been funded through the Coastcare Victoria Community Grant scheme, part of the Department of the Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) of the Victorian State Government.

Bushy peppercress is a rare plant restricted to fragmented coastal wetlands in Victoria; the species is listed under the Flora & Fauna Guarantee Act as Endangered. Currently little is known of the ecology of this species, and there is no Recovery Plan.

The project will investigate the ecology, physiology, and distribution of L. desvauxii in three disjunct populations in Gippsland, Victoria. The project will lead to a greater understanding of this species and its role in the ecosystem and we hope that the results may contribute to the development of a robust Recovery Plan and inform future conservation and restoration actions for this, and other related, species.

This project is kindly supported by the Victorian Government

We were very grateful to receive some storm damaged timber from Yarra Ranges Council earlier in the year, and have been working with our colleagues at Ecology & Restoration Australia to turn this timber into wildlife habitat.

Some of the timber has been utilised to form entrances for carved hollows, suitable for arboreal native species.

These were made using a new tool called the Hollowhog, which can carve a small or large hollow into the wood. Some of the timber will also be used as refuges for terrestrial species, such as lizards, and still more will be made into bee hotels.

Creating a place where individuals and groups can collaborate to enhance the resilience of the ecosystems of Australia though on-ground actions and education initiatives

We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country and recognise their continuing connection to land, sea, culture and community.
We pay our respects to Elders past and present and emerging.
Our Organization is situated on the land of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation.