For World Environment Day, we're highlighting the way we support our natural habitats.
Kate Constance is a member of the Environment & Biodiversity team and spends most of her time outdoors in the north of our region.
As a Nature Reserves Officer, Kate works in City reserves that have biodiversity significance.
Part of the role is to manage environmental weeds and encourage native vegetation to drop seed and regenerate.
Kate captured a typical day recently...
Mount Anakie
On this day, Kate is based at Mount Anakie, the only City nature reserve with the endangered Scoria Cone Woodland vegetation. The understory of the grassy woodland environment is dominated by native gasses such as poa and weeping grass.
Pasture grass– phalaris – is considered a weed in nature reserves and spraying helps keep it at bay.
Manna gum
Seeds from a low-lying manna gum (Eucalyptus viminalis) are collected for propagation.
This process is commonly used to support revegetation making sure that plants returned to the reserves are of local provenance and the correct vegetation type.
Alternate approach
In some cases, hand weeding is required to preserve native vegetation. For example, if a weed is growing through native plants it is not possible spray. This happens on occasion at Mount Anakie, but more often in other locations like Seaview Reserve in Belmont.
Kate says she most enjoys seeing the transformation of an environment impacted by weeds to a site that's rich in biodiversity. Thanks for sharing your day with us, Kate!
