Rehabilitation
Brisbane’s Inner West has a rich and often surprising natural wealth in bushland remnants and along local waterways. It is up to us to protect and enhance our precious natural assets. We are building habitat and repair corridors for wildlife movements Join one of the local bushcare groups registered with Brisbane City Council’s Habitat Brisbane Program or contact us for special projects. Click here to view the rehabilitation projects map for Inner West.
Bushcare activities are carried out from the Cubberla Creek’s headwaters in Chapel Hill to its mouth in Fig Tree Pocket. Tributaries include Gubberley Creek and Little Gubberley Creek. Groups rehabilitate bushland and waterways by removing weeds and planting native vegetation to encourage wildlife use. Cubberla Creek and its tributaries as well as their riparian zone form a core corridor for aquatic and terrestrial wildlife movement between Brisbane River and Mount Coot-tha. This corridor is recognized in CWCN’s Cubberla Creek Connect project. It is an essential part of Brisbane’s biodiversity network and identified as having high ecological value under the Draft City Plan (2014). Apart from CWCN’s own projects and the work Brisbane Girls Grammar does at their sports campus in Fig Tree Pocket, the following groups, registered under BCC’s Habitat Brisbane Program, are working in the catchment:
Volunteer groups from Green Hill Reservoir in Chapel Hill to the creek mouth near Indooroopilly’s Walter Taylor Bridge work on improving the health of bushland remnants and Witton Creek through weed control and the establishment of native vegetation. Their work influences the repairing of a wildlife corridor along Witton Creek, identified under CWCN’s Witton for Wildlife project. This corridor is recognised as having high ecological value under the Draft City Plan (status Jan 2014). Close cooperation under Witton for Wildlife also exists with Indooroopilly’s UQ Experimental Mine and the Indooroopilly Scouts Den land.
Toowong Creek is marked as a stepping stone corridor within the Brisbane Biodiversity Network, however and despite its potential, its importance for local wildlife and Toowong’s population is not sufficiently recognised. CWCN will continue to work with the local bushcare group along the creek in line with CWCN’s Toowong Creek Turnaround project.
Bushcare groups working outside of the system of our Inner West creeks but within the Brisbane River system focus on restoration of remnant riverine and other habitats adjacent or near the Brisbane River. Weed removal and planting endemic species are key measures to enhance biodiversity and restore habitats. Many of these areas are important stepping stones for connectivity along the river or linking up with existing corridors.
Our densely populated catchments don’t have many properties large enough to fit under the voluntary conservation program Land for Wildlife. Additionally, a substantial number of larger properties along the Cubberla Creek line are zoned as “Emerging community” in the new City Plan and for that reason are not admissible to the Land for Wildlife program under Council rules.
Sandy Creek has suffered through urbanisation with most of the waterway piped and placed underground. However, the lower reaches of the catchment, especially down-stream from Indooroopilly Road and in the St Lucia Golf Links show excellent potential for habitat repair. This section links up with the Brisbane River system.
This catchment has lost a lot of its natural potential to urbanisation, yet pockets of bushland remnants in the upper reaches of the creek survive and provide important habitat for native wildlife. The proximity to Mount Coot-tha Forest Park makes rehabilitation highly desirable for reasons of connectivity.