Photopoints

Photopoints are a good way to record progress. You pick a spot and take a photograph to record exactly how the view looked at a point in time. Then you come back at successive intervals for more photos so that you can record the changes. This is useful for reporting to grant providers, in this case, the NSW Environmental Trust.

Below are two photos of the same spot, looking downstream, before and after a team of skilled bush regenerators have removed privet saplings that have taken over one bank of Ourimbah Creek. Note the white plastic star-post used to locate the photopoint.

BEFORE (June 2010) AFTER (September 2010)

And here are the views from the same photopoint, this time looking upstream towards another star-post paired with the first one. More than 30 native species have been identified along this stretch of creek bank and, as the piles of privet debris rot down, their nutrients will be taken up by this regenerating forest. As you can see, privet was very thick here and it was difficult for the native plants to make much headway until it was removed.

However, some of the best photopoints are located above the forest.

See how we monitor weeding and regeneration, looking down at the forest over different time scales:

• over a few minutes

• over a few years

• over more than half a century