What I remember was Bonnie Humphreys, a staff member at Connecting Country, who was working on the Yellow Box Woodland Project saying to me one day – ‘Hi guys we’re just wondering what you’re doing for the next five years and whether you’d like to look after a Bushland Reserve … it is only 35.5 Hectares and its right in the middle Barkers Creek’.
My first thought was – Why isn’t it called The Barkers Creek Natural Features Bushland Reserve (it will be one day). My second thought was why not? So our Exec had a chat, then the rest of the group and we decided to take on management of this site for five years – 2012 to 2017.
Well that is not how it all got started. The truth is this is our first and biggest ever I.M.B.Y. project. It all started with Kirsten, who had noticed our group pulling Broom along blackjack Road, and wandered over to check us out, and then promptly joined our group. The next week Kirsten was walking her dog through the Bushland behind her home and upon seeing all the weeds and the rubbish she approached Connecting Country to ask who looks after it? Well the answer appeared, at the time, to be no one (we now know Parks Vic is the responsible authority) so Barkers Creek Landcare & Wildlife group took over this project … what a massive (35.5 hectares) I.M.B.Y.
Connecting Country gave us some initial funding particularly to spray Bridal Creeper, Blackberry and Gorse and for some plants. First priority was to pull out all the Broom, then to collect all the rubbish. (Oh, have I said before that the bush in Barkers Greek was seen for many decades as a good place to dump rubbish). For many of our projects the first step is to clean up the rubbish. This was massively true of the Bushland Reserve with piles several metres high being collected.
Once again it is amazing what can be achieved by a group of dedicated volunteers. For a little while we also had the help of the Green Army who did a whole lot of Gorse removal and re-planting. We have now finished this five year agreement but we are continuing our work into the future. For many of the local residents this area is now unrecognizable – no rubbish, weeds almost eradicated and now some indigenous plants to compliment what is already a quite diverse environment.