On Friday 25 November 2011, the Council hosted a site tour of projects being undertaken with investment from the Australian Government's Caring for our Countriy intitiative.  The Council was accompanied by representatives of the Australian Government's Land and Coasts group and the ACT Government Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate.

Yurung Dhaura Caring for the Cotter Catchment Project

Members of the Yurung Dhaura team showed tour members around the Grass Tree site in the Cotter Catchment that they have been working on over the past 6 months. The site of remnant woodland and grass trees is being protected from vehivle and motorcycle traffic by fencing and weeds such as pine wildings, balckberries, briars and  St John Wort are being treated.  The team took the tour group on a walk around one the low key walking tracks that they have constructed at the site, which takes vistors past a large variety of local plants that are valuable Indigenous resources.  The team members spoke with pride and passion about the work they have done on the site and their vision for the future use of the site as a resource for Indigenous people connecting to country.

For further information on this project go to the project page.

ACT Land Keepers

Greening Australia  showed progress being made on landscape recovery in the Cotter River catchment through the engagement of the Canberra community in large scale planting work.  The site chosen for inspection was on the slopes of Mt MacDonald overlooking the Cotter Dam Enlargement Project.  The site had been planted in 2005 and showed clear evidence of good growth enhanced by significant native regeneration.  Greening Australia is continuing this work in the Cotter in partnership with the ACT Government and the assistane of the Australin Government's Caring for our Country initiative. For further information on this project go to the project page.

Ginninderra Creek Restoration Project

The Ginninderra Catchment Group are working with Macgregor Landcare to bring this section of the Ginninderra Creek back to a more natural state, removing woody weeds and doing strategic plantings to enhance the river corridor to assist the movement of native fauna through the suburbs to adjoining parks and reserves.  This site is part of larger project addressing woody weeds in the Creek downstream of the Lake Gininnderra to the ACT border.  For further information on this project go to the project page.

Ginninderra Catchment Coordination, Waterwatch and Frogwatch

Tour Members were invited to the premises of the Ginninderra Catchment Group at the Kippax Centre, where they received a presentation about the work the Group does in coordinating the annual ACT frog survey and in community based water quality monitoring.

ACT Region Seed Bank

The Council completed their tour by visiting the Greening Australia Seed Bank, where they learnt about how Seed Bank operates in partnership with the Australian Botanic Gardens to supply seed to Greening Australia's regional operations and to for sale.  Greening Australia now has seen in store from over 200 plant species, with the number growing daily.  The aim is to collect seed from across the diversity of species present in our local woodland and grassland communities.  Council members learned of the recent work of Greening Australia to grow some plants on in foam boxes for seed collection.  Species difficuilt to collect in the wild are being tragetted fro this treatment. For further details of go to the project page