The official launch of the ‘George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens Woodland Biodiversity and Habitat Enhancement Project’ was opened by the Hon David Tollner MP. The project is a result of the combined effort of Conservation Volunteers Australia and the Darwin Botanic Gardens.
A year ago, Johnny Estbergs tossed in his job as a financial planner to lead teams of Green Corps “youngsters” in Darwin with Conservation Volunteers Australia and he’s loving it.
Johnny’s latest assignment is to re-establish native forest in the woodland section of Darwin’s Botanic Gardens. This means planting 1000 native seedlings, constructing a walking track, installing picnic tables, and surveying present populations of threatened species, including the grey headed flying fox and the rufous owl.
Johnny described working with young people as inspiring. “In the past 4 weeks, the team had mapped 200 or so trees and plants in the woodland section with the help of space age GPS technology and, can you believe, the youngsters decided to carry out separate projects on the area’s wildlife in their own time”.
Johnny explained that a few weeks earlier a cluster of 20 snails was found behind the dead bark of a eucalypt tree in the section of the Gardens being rehabilitated; this was the first time this particular species had been found in the Northern Territory. Johnny went onto say that only 22 snail species had ever been found in the Top End. This compares with a couple of hundred in Queensland.
The Hon David Tollner MP gave the keynote address on behalf of Minister Stone. Mr Tollner warned the Green Corps participants that Johnny was a hard task master, but noted the advantage: most of the work would be completed before start of the humid ‘Build Up’!
Mr Tollner observed that 2007 is the 10th anniversary of Green Corps and during that time its achievements had been spectacular. For example, native seeds weighing over 9 tonnes had been collected and 14 million trees planted. Green Corps has constructed and maintained 5,000 kilometres of walking tracks – basically five times the distance between Darwin and Tennant Creek.
Green Corps volunteer Natasha Robertson had been appointed team spokesperson. Natasha spoke about making strong friendships and learning more about native plants and animals in the area.
Everyone agreed that the work carried out by the team of Green Corps volunteers will benefit future generations of visitors to the Gardens.
Photograph
L - R: Gillian Cromie, Natasha Robertson, Amanda Howe, Julien Faucher-Selwood and Johnny Estbergs