Speaker
Remote area weeding in Tasmania: control of sea spurge and marram grass
Jon Marsden-Smedley, Sea Spurge Remote Area Teams (SPRATS)
SPRATS is a self-managing volunteer WildCare group working for the past 17 years in partnership with PWS to manage ecosystem-transforming weeds on the 850 km of coastline in Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area and buffer areas.
The main weeds worked on are sea spurge (Euphorbia paralias) and marram grass (Ammophila arenaria). Prior to SPRATS commencing weeding, the region was surveyed and contained about 11.1 million sea spurge plants and 124 000 marram grass clumps. By 2022/23, SPRATS had done over 8500 person days work, reducing sea spurge by 99% and marram grass clumps by 98%. Over the past two years, SPRATS has extended its work to perform the rollout, monitoring and testing of the recently developed sea spurge biological control, Venturia paralias.
This biocontrol agent has the potential to greatly assist with the control and management of sea spurge by knocking down big infestations in northwestern, northern and northeastern Tasmania.
John is semi-retired and got into remote-area weeding after a career doing bushfire research and management for Parks and Wildlife and the University of Tasmania. Over the past 45 years he has seen a lot of changes on our wilderness coastlines.
Tracks, campsites and bushwalker numbers come and go, but the number and type of weeds always seem to increase. About 20 years ago John started, initially in an "ad-hoc and very amateurish manner," to do weeding along the south and west coasts of Tasmania between Macquarie Harbour and Cockle Creek. After learning how to do effective remote area weeding from the other members of SPRATS, the effectiveness of this work greatly improved.
John now spends about six months each year doing volunteer work planning, organising and doing on-the-ground weeding across much of Tasmania's coastline. He also performs bushfire assessments for the Tasmanian Land Conservancy.
View Jon's Presentation at the Conference here:
