Inspirational

LAST Saturday, Karen and I went for a walk in a great patch of rainforest at Flaxton. The amazing thing about this rainforest is that most of it was planted or regenerated over the last 5-15 years!Surprisingly, this isn’t a national park or undertaken by a large organisation or community group. This is the work of a passionate and dedicated couple and the skilled bush regenerators they have assembled to help them with their project. Truly inspirational! So in this article I’d like to pay tribute to all those great landholders out there who are revegetating the landscape and the great benefits these dedicated people bring to us all.
The hills and valleys of the Blackall Range have been fertile ground (pardon the pun) for a developing culture that appreciates the diversity and richness of our local ecosystems. Many local people now make a living in the bush regeneration & revegetation industry and work far afield using skills developed and honed on the Blackall Range. For example, Brush Turkey Enterprises has grown from a team of two dreamers 13 years ago, to a skilled team of 14 making a living and saving our local biodiversity! But I digress…for the real heroes are all those folk out there who call the range home and who put their time and resources into revegetating their land in a selfless act of generosity from which we will all benefit.
Corridors have been planted that will link isolated remnants and help the animals and plants that call those remnants home to survive. Creek banks have been planted that will reduce erosion and improve water quality – a shared resource to us all. Forests have been planted that will absorb carbon from the atmosphere, stabilise landscape, improve soil quality. Habitat has also been increased to provide homes for wildlife through the installing of nest boxes, snags in creeks (dead trees, not sausages – just in case you were wondering!) and revegetation.
We are all fortunate to be part of this community, but there’s so much more to be done. Many of us are concerned with the loss of Rainforests in South America or South East Asia, but what we often forget is that a little closer to home we are fortunate to live with one of the most diverse subtropical rainforest ecosystems on earth and the fate of these ecosystems and their diversity is in our hands. So thank you to all those local heroes out there who are busy restoring these ecosystems and remember, the rainforest needs you!