For the first time, our Annual General Meeting was held at the new home of the Conservancy – and the site of our flagship program Science Saving Rainforests.
It was also the first President’s Report given by Mark Dunphy, after our Co-Founder and President of over 30 years, Tony Parkes, stepped down last year.
Mark’s first call of order was to acknowledge Tony’s continual work driving many Big Scrub projects and issues. At 95, Tony still works nearly every day planning strategies for the Big Scrub for the next 50 to 500 years!
Mark gave the following report to attendees at the meeting.
Remnant Care Program
Bush regeneration work undertaken during the 2023/24 financial year covered 168.5 hectares of remnant rainforest across 38 sites. This entailed mostly weed control and monitoring but also plantings to expand remnant size. Thank you to the Big Scrub Foundation, NSW Government’s Environmental Trust and Rekindle Foundation for funding this work.
Our Remnant Care program has been running for 30 years through bush regenerator contractors, including the team at Envite Environment, Darren Bailey and his team and Jesse Vandenbosch and his crew at Big Scrub Regeneration.
These contractors have been consistent across this time and as we all know with regen consistent funding and consistent skilled teams that know the sites over decades means quality, efficient and effective regen. I would like to acknowledge and thank Envite, Darren and Jesse for their long-term commitment.
Science Saving Rainforests Program
The genome project is bigger than Ben Hur – a big and complex project, it has never been done anywhere in the world. Conceived by Tony more than seven years ago it is powering full steam ahead, with a big team of skilled and experienced people involved.
Some quick statistics from the program:
- 12,500 leaf samples for 56 of the 60 species have been collected to date, mostly by Dr Robert Kooyman
- Genetic results and analysis for 27 species (i.e. 23 key structural species and 4 threatened species) received to date
- 236 propagule collections (mostly cuttings, but some seed and wildlings) which amounts to around 7,000 cuttings of the 80,000 needed over the 60 species
- Some cuttings have been potted on, and seed collected is germinating with some seedlings already potted on
- We expect some plants to be ready for planting in less than a year.
Thank you to our partners:
- Dr Robert Kooyman
- The team at the Research Centre for Ecosystem Resilience at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney, in particular Prof Maurizio Rossetto and Richard Dimon
- The Firewheel Rainforest Nursery team, in particular, Jo, Hilke, Hamish and Joel
- Propagule collectors – Darren Bailey, Sam Brown, Jake Lennon, Barbara Stewart and Annette McKinley
- Myself, Tony and Renee have been designing various elements of the project and plantation site.
Thank you to our major supporters:
- NSW Government bodies, including Saving Our Species, The Environmental Trust and NPWS
- Di Brown and Justin Mallee from SOS and NPWS
- Rekindle Foundation
- Big Scrub Foundation
- The wonderful anonymous couple who funded the purchase of our plantation site
An update on the plantation site:
What a gift to be at this site today, donated anonymously by long-time friends of the Conservancy – it will change what we’re able to achieve forever.
We have a vision for an education centre, a seed plantation for the Science Saving Rainforests project, a wildlife haven, a place for walks and stories of the Big Scrub to be told. We need to think big, and create an immersive Big Scrub experience. This is just the beginning and we are open to ideas, and open to help!
We have to thank a few people early on in the development. “One man, many machines” Noel Outerbridge has been incredible, working on the weekend to clear the site and improve habitat, and much of it out of the goodness of his heart. Five acres of macadamias and hundreds of Camphors have been cleared.
We have had wildlife specialist Wren McLean helping Noel place logs for habitat. Karl from Lune de Sang sowing cover crops to improve the soil health for the plantation area. Fred Myers has also been helping us out with some general regen and help. And our incredible landscape architect Nick Alderson is hard at work on a master plan for the site.
Read more about the progress of Science Saving Rainforests here.
Birds of the Big Scrub Monitoring Project
Since Glenn Holmes’ report in the 1980s little consistent monitoring been done on birds or fauna in the Big Scrub remnants. So with new technology we can do the long-term surveys needed to see what is happening.
Using Passive Acoustic Monitors, which we recently acquired, we can record bird sounds during each season to catch bird species that are using the remnants as well as restored rainforest patches.
The full project is underway and will run for a minimum period of 3 years. Read more about the project here.
Big Scrub Schools Program
In October, 96 students from 4 local primary schools attended a planting and education day at Rocky Creek Dam. 800 rainforest trees were planted, the kids were taken on a guided walk and listened to talks and the Welcome to Country.
Thank you to Rekindle Foundation for the funding support, and the Rous team, Dorroughby Environment Education Centre team and our own Georgie Jones and Renee Borrow for coordinating.
Big Scrub Comms & Engagement
We embarked on our first major PR effort for Science Saving Rainforests. We were rewarded with multiple big stories on ABC Online and live on ABC TV News. Stories for Landline (to be aired in the first quarter of 2025) and a profile piece on Tony to go out during their Summer programming, most likely on the 7:30 Report, are still to come.
Lots of work has been done on an online donations strategy – a direct donations and monthly supporter framework on our website and a fundraising campaign for SSR was launched this year. This has added a significant new funding source to help finance our projects.
We continue to spread the word on social media. Please follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay up to date with all that we’re up to.
Big Scrub Rainforest Day
For those wondering what happened to Big Scrub Rainforest Day this year, we put our efforts behind the first national conference focussed on rainforest conservation in 20 years – Rainforest Connections. We sponsored the event and Georgie, Tony, Renee and I all spoke. It was an incredible celebration and get together to help push rainforest conservation further.
—-
Thank you to our partners and supporters for another fabulous year spent helping save the Big Scrub. We are gathering a hell of a lot of momentum and are looking forward to our biggest year yet in 2025. It sure doesn’t look like the years are getting any smaller.
Mark Dunphy, President
Big Scrub Rainforest Conservancy
