21 August 2024 | Trading in laptops for shovels, gloves, and dirty hands, teams of corporate volunteers eagerly joined forces with Landcare Tasmania this winter to help create connected wildlife and vegetation corridors in the Coal River Valley, outside Hobart.
A member of the Timmins Ray team bears a big smile during their tree planting day. Photo credit: Dawn Green.
Following on from the successful plantings last year, Stage 2 of the Pages Creek Catchment Restoration Project kicked off with team members from Timmins Ray public relations and Inspiring Place landscape architects undertaking a day of tree planting.
With a goal to plant 1,400 native plants across approximately one hectare of land, this project is vital for enhancing landscape connectivity and bolstering habitat conditions for the threatened green and gold frog (Litoria raniformis), and contributes significantly to conservation efforts. This site is key to continuing to create a corridor connecting the Coal River Tier to the east to Hammonds Tier to the west and along the Pages Creek riparian corridor from Tea Tree to Richmond.
Team members from Inspiring Place hard at work making a difference for the Pages Creek Restoration Project.
Landcare Tasmania project manager Anna Minchin spoke with the groups about the importance of connectivity corridors to help priority species move through the landscape.
"We are at a critical point in ecosystem restoration and we are, in fact, in the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration until 2030. We need to think of novel and innovative ways to address the scale of the problem and at the moment this includes how to mobilise finance for the repair of ecosystem function at a landscape scale such as in the Pages Creek catchment area," she said.
"Corporate partnerships such as those established with Timmins Ray and Inspiring Place create impactful opportunities for organisations that deliver real nature positive outcomes."
The Coal River Tier is situated between the towns of Tea Tree and Richmond with the 2,000 acres of dry forest containing a significant portion of the Eucalyptus globulus dry forest and woodland threatened vegetation community as well as high priority fauna including the Tasmanian devil and spotted quoll. The Coal River Tier is described as "an island adrift amongst a sea of agricultural land," with these restoration efforts helping to restore landscape connectivity.
Landcare Tasmania project manager Anna Minchin. Photo credit: Dawn Green.
The corporate teams had an introduction to the site and the project's aims which are to improve the riparian vegetation condition along Pages Creek and to involve the community in landscape restoration projects in Tasmania. Following a demonstration on tree planting techniques, the teams eagerly got planting, stopping for a well earned lunch and afternoon tea break and celebrated their work at the end of the day.
Timmins Ray managing director Jacquie Ray spoke about the day:
"Landcare Tasmania's Pages Creek Catchment Restoration Project provided a fantastic opportunity for our team to get out of the office and contribute to a really worthwhile conservation initiative for the vulnerable green and gold frog.
"The day was filled with learning, laughter, teamwork and team bonding, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed getting back into nature, spending a day in the sun making a difference. It was a win-win for everyone.”
Photo Gallery
Inspiring Place (Photo credit: Inspiring Place 2024)
Timmins Ray (Photo credit: Landcare Tasmania 2024)
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Watch a short video on the Pages Creek Catchment Restoration Project:
Supporting partners of the Pages Creek Catchment Restoration Project
Special thanks to the Pages Creek Catchment group who have the goal of protecting and restoring the habitats of the green and gold frog, along with other native aquatic and land based native species in this important catchment.
