CVA Brookfield Nov 2013 - What We Accomplished

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Parent Category: South Australia

Category: Adelaide

Created: Tuesday, 19 November 2013 23:08

Conservation is a long term project that involves a variety of tasks which, when taken in isolation, may seem tedious, but when looked at over a period of time become an excellent accomplishment.

This CVA project represents a rare opportunity in that the research side requires only a couple of hours a day in the morning and evening leaving the rest of the day free for other activities including park maintenance.

On Tuesday, we sat down with Meryn to discuss what we all wanted to accomplish in our time at the park. We knew from our experience on Sunday and Monday that there were a few locations in the park that needed attention to so we decide to create a workplan.

There a few major concerns with regard to running a publicly accessed conservation park:

1. Roads – Are they maintained to the point where the public can use them without driving off road?

2. Vegetation – are invasive species spreading? Are there any vegetation hazards such as fallen branches?

3. Fence – Is the perimeter fence intact and in good condition?

4. Litter & waste

With this in mind, we made a chart (below) and drove the public tracks with a GPS to take stock of any current or potential issues

Site# was a general reference for prioritising tasks, Easting and Northing are GPS coordinates in UTM format (CVA's chosen format), Distance was from the start of the track. For road condition, vegetation and fence, we used a key to the specify the work required. The notes column contained any extra information about the work needed.

We ended up with 49 sites to attend to over the 30 kilometres of public roads, some with a one issue and others with a few issues, each requiring differing levels of work.

We prioritised the jobs by areas where there was potential for environmental harm due to road conditions, and where an invasive plant had been spotted in isolation or small numbers.

To attend to the road, we used gravel, local rocks and dirt to fill any potholes, wheel ruts or erosion points. We attended to 25 areas of the road. We also repaired one of the gate posts that had become loose.

Weeds are another story. There are 3 main species that we were monitoring for: Onion Weed (Asphodelus fistulosus), Horehound (Marrubium vulgare), Wild Sage (Salvia verbenaca). These are pastural weeds left over when this was an operating station. The weeds out compete the local indigenous plants removing food from the indigenous fauna.

We focused on areas where the weeds were in small patches or isolation in order to limit their expansion. There is an adage “One year of seed equals seven years of weed” and we take it to heart. In removing the weed we did our best to limit the spread of seed, sometimes removing the flowers prior to the roots. We also had to be mindful not to disturb the ground too much so as to limit erosion. By limiting the spread of these weeds, it enables conservationists to tackle the larger problem systematically, gradually reducing the areas that require monitoring. It's a long term problem that requires constant vigilance, and if attended to in a systematic way, provides greater results than just focusing on large infested areas. Over the course of our 8 days, we removed in excess of a dozen bags of weeds including a section of onion weeds 2 metres by 20 metres and Horehound along 200 metres of the roadside.

CVA takes part in Road Watch, a community based approach to keeping country roads clean. We attended to a section along the border of the property roughly 10 metres by 100 metres and removed 4 bags and a box of tin cans, broken glass, a sleeping bag, two LCD panels, strips of metal, various plastics from appliances, and dozens of strips of tire rubber.

When you start to look it becomes hard to believe people are so careless with how they dispose of rubbish.

On the last day, we took a drive around the park to practice landscape photography. As we drove, it became clear to us the extent of the work that we had accomplished. It reminded us that conservation is a long process, and while we couldn't solve every issue we highlighted, we attended to quite a few and were able to hand over a management plan that future groups would be able to utilise. Conservation is a combination of small small activities, seemingly in isolation, that amount to remarkable progress over years and it feels wonderful to have contributed.

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