Core activities

We meet twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Members will be somewhere on the site between 7.30 am and 12.30 pm. Everyone on site gathers for a break between 10 and 10.30 am.

Each of us has favorite tasks, but overall we 

• control environmental weeds

• propagate and transplant local native plants

• maintain access to and within the site

• facilitate educational activities

• report regularly to local authorities & to the public

• monitor and record biodiversity

• host relevant activities. 

When we started work 20 years ago, vigorous privet, lantana, blackberry and honeysuckle indicated how fertile the site was. Small patches of original rainforest were less weedy, however. Working out from these good patches, we found plenty of rainforest seedlings. We transplanted some to more distant thickets of privet, where they established themselves. Now, they are themselves seeding and colonising their surroundings. It's slow, but each little native seedling represents an incremental advance. 

A period of 20 years may not seem long in the life of a rainforest. On the other hand, the former kikuyu pasture now has substantial patches of established tree canopy. In these, a diversity of catchment tree species are supporting epiphytes, dozens of different vines and shading a forest floor where few weeds can survive. 

Current management aims to bring the whole site to this level of resilience. Incremental advances, year by year, will achieve that.