We had a great turn out on 1 July 2015 for Stage 1 of the river bank revegetation project of the SCB UQ-Brisbane Chapter. Around 100 volunteers spent the morning planting understory shrubs and rain forest trees on the St Lucia campus of The University of Queensland. Thanks to their hard work, we got nearly 5000 plants in the ground.
Our thanks also go to UQ Sustainability and the UQ Property and Facilities Department who are project partners, and did a fantastic job of preparing the site and organising the planting event, and making sure it ran smoothly.
The project aims to increase habitat and connectivity for a range of declining and threatened small birds, mammals, insects and reptiles. These include fairy-wrens, scrubwrens, fantails, Richmond birdwing butterflies, and grey-headed flying foxes. Numbers of many of these species are declining in Brisbane due to urban development, loss of suitable habitat and a range of other threatening processes. Our project will hopefully tip the balance back in favour of these native species on the campus.
Revegetation will take place over two years, with a total of 15,000 understory plants being planted along the Brisbane River and on other parts of the campus. The project is funded by the Queensland Government through the Everyone’s Environment Grant scheme.
Planting for Stage 2 will take place later in 2015, with stage 3 planned for February 2016. Monitoring of birds and plants, which commenced pre-planting, will continue to be undertaken in and near restored areas to detect changes in biodiversity and determine the effectiveness of the restoration efforts.