Community Focus – Condamine Headwaters Landcare group

Condamine Headwaters Landcare Group

*Warwick’s Landcare Group for over 24 years.

Landcare has had a strong history in Warwick, with Condamine Headwaters Landcare being formed out of the previous landcare groups of Glengallan and Rosenthal areas, and it has operated continuously in our town for all that time.

CHLG Landcare Coordinator Tanya Jobling talks to students at Scots College about biodiversity. Students did a workshop looking at plants and their changes over time in ecological communities.

Landcare is not a government organisation and does not receive government funding to operate. It is entirely a local community group, held together by a volunteer committee, members and caring locals. The group employs a coordinator (part time) to run relevant landcare projects (which are made possible by gaining competitive grant funding) and to serve the landcare interests of the community, work with council, work with Southern Queensland Landscapes and to provide a landcare venue for members.

 

Over the last five years, CHLG has delivered over $500,000 worth of projects to the local community in diverse areas such as drought events, grazing planning, Natural Sequence Farming, regenerative agriculture, cultural burning, vegetation management and championing local food producers.

Natural Sequence Farming training with Stuart Andrews, participants learning how to plan works to increase landscape hydration and reduce erosion. We followed up the training course with co-funded works on 10 local properties.
Workshop participants learn about cultural cool burning to reduce bushfire risk around towns and in rural areas. Our workshops are open to all communtiy members.

The group runs an office (now located at block E at the TAFE on Dragon St) so we are available by appointment. We are looking at setting up a native plant nursery to supply the local community with native plants that suit our area, support local biodiversity and are hardy in dry times. We are grateful to local landcare members, volunteers and supporters who make these initiatives possible.

As well as running local and relevant land management projects, our Landcare group also hosts two community groups who do bushcare. One of these, Killarney Bushcare Group, has been meeting monthly for many years and regularly hosts interesting wildlife events, outings and tree plantings. A more recent group, Friends of Everest Rd Flora Reserve meets monthly to help conserve the remaining patch of remnant of Rosenthal Scrub, a now rare bush type that once grew over much of the Rosenthal Heights area.

Community members at a birding and plant diversity workshop at Rosenthal Scrub, Everest Road. This small remnant of "semi-evergreen vine thicket" is a rare scrub type and needs to be conserved for future biodiversity.

The Condamine Headwaters Landcare Group also maintains close links with the Allora Landcare Group, who have also been running for many years and meet monthly, with regular outings and events.

If you are interested in any of these groups, please get in touch (officechlg@gmail.com) and we will pass on the relevant contact details. CHLG  membership costs $20, is open to all and is available on the same email address.

Caring for the bush or being a good land manager on your farm or patch is healthy in so many ways, and it contributes so much to your own well-being, your family’s and your community’s. Here’s a quote from the web; it applies to us individually, but also to us collectively as a community or society.

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