By Callum Ludwig
The Mt Evelyn Environmental Protection and Progress Association (MEEPPA, Ausnet staff, Yarra Ranges Council’s bushland management team and volunteers have come together for a planting day at the Mt Evelyn Recreation Reserve.
1,500 trees and shrubs will be planted to help support the population of Powerful Owls, Yellow-Bellied Gliders and Long-nosed Bandicoots in the area.
MEEPPA President Clare Worsnop said the planting aims to soak up the wetlands and create habitat around two large trees.
“Especially with all the storms that have happened and some inappropriate pruning of trees, we are trying to replace what’s been lost, so that the creatures have got a better chance,” she said.
“Our Powerful Owls, for example, have always been extremely successful breeding. This year, our two pairs that live in this reserve have both failed to raise young, and that’s very concerning.”
The group of volunteers consisted of about 30 people hard at work despite the wet and soggy conditions from the recent heavy rain.
Ms Worsnop said the vegetation there lives symbiotically with the roots from one protecting the roots from another plant.
“So by having these low and medium size trees, you also will find out that you’re protecting the large trees which are so rare these days because they’re falling down. You have to have a tree that’s about 200 years old before you’ve got a hollow big enough for an owl or family of gliders,” she said.
“It’s very important that we protect these remaining forest giants as there aren’t too many of them left, from the storms we’ve had we lost probably 80 per cent of the canopy on Tramway Road.”
AusNet will also donate two cameras to MEEPPA, which will be placed in treetops to assist them with their wildlife population studies, specifically of the Powerful Owl.
Head of Field Assessment and Vegetation Management at Ausnet Bridget Cairns said it was a great opportunity for their teams to come down.
“It’s about keeping our customers and community safe, both from an electrical perspective and also the future of really important endangered species and regenerating the floodplain,” she said.
“Working with MEEPPA has been a really great experience and it has gotten our teams out and about a bit which is a great team-building exercise.”
MEEPPA played an important role in advocating for the former Yarra Ranges Shire to purchase the land for the community of Mt Evelyn back in 1927.
Yarra Ranges Council Bushland Management Officer Ben O’Leary said anytime they can get the community involved in environmental activities is a win.
“It’s good for the bush, it’s good for their physical and mental health and we want to support that wherever we can, particularly when we can get community members working with their volunteer groups,” he said.
“This is a really special site because it protects so many threatened species and provides a home for them. We’re always busy in the bushland team at Council, we are just on the tail end of our planting season here and have planted in the realm of about 40,000 plants, all local indigenous plants supplied by local volunteer nurseries.”
The trees have been sourced from Friends of the Helmeted Honeyeater in Yellingbo.
