On Clean up Australia Day 2020, staff and citizen scientists from the Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute and Scenic World will be joining the Blue Mountains City Council and the Garguree Swampcare group in a general clean up of the Maple Grove Park area, next to Katoomba Falls.
This will involve more than picking up rubbish, we will also be weeding and conducting general remediation to help swamp conservation. All interested members of the community are encouraged to join us and support the excellent work of Swampcare.
THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR ‘HANGING’ SWAMPS
The upland (or ‘hanging’) swamps of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage area play a crucial role in supporting biodiversity and delivering purified water flows to creeks and waterfalls, but their status is vulnerable and they are listed as endangered ecological communities.
Upland Swamp at Pope’s Glen, Blackheath. Image: Blue Mountains Gazette
The upland swamps of the Blue Mountains house a unique, biologically diverse plant community that occurs nowhere else in the world and they provide essential habitat to several threatened species including the Blue Mountains Water Skink and the Giant Dragonfly.
These swamps play a vital part in maintaining the water flows to creeks and waterfalls, by storing water and slowly releasing it over time. Swamps also act as filters, purifying water prior to release it into creeks and waterfalls. Threatened plant species that only occur in the Blue Mountains, such as the Epacris Hamiltonii shrub and the Dwarf Mountain Pine, rely on the continued seepage from these hanging swamps for their survival.
The hydrological and carbon storage functions of Blue Mountains swamps are critical ecosystem services, but these swamps and their vital functions are threatened by fire, drought, flood, climate change, urban development and mining. There is considerable uncertainty about how our swamps have been affected by recent drought, fires and floods and how they will be impacted in the future.
There are now less than 3,000 hectares of Blue Mountains Swamp in existence. They tend to occur in many small areas, so they are susceptible to edge effects and, as the urban footprint expands to the edges of the plateau, our swamps are coming under ever-increasing pressure.
ABOUT SWAMPCARE
The swamp conservation, remediation and rehabilitation efforts of the Blue Mountains City Council and their voluntary Swampcare groups are critically important to the ongoing survival and function of our Upland Swamps.
Swampcare is a major part of the Blue Mountains City Council Bushcare program, and is the flagship program for all Blue Mountains swamp-related initiatives including the Swampcare and Swampwatch programs.
Bushcare and Swampcare volunteers, supported by council, consistently do amazing work and achieve great things. For instance, at Pope’s Glen in Blackheath, volunteers spent 16 years slowly but successfully turning a willow-infested wasteland into a thriving swamp (see video, above).
The Garguree Swampcare group in Katoomba was created in 2011 by Traditional Custodians who wanted to combine Swampcare with a Caring for Country group in the Gully, open to all of the community.
The Gully (aka Garguree) is the largest Aboriginal Place in New South Wales, located on the south-west outskirts of Katoomba. The Gully forms the headwaters of the Katoomba Falls Creek and is therefore part of the Warragamba Catchment area that provides Sydney’s water.
Garguree was an Aboriginal settlement of the Gundungurra and Darug people. The residents were evicted to make way for a car racing track which closed in 1970 and was then used as a single car circuit until the mid 90's. The Gully was finally officially recognised as an Aboriginal Place in 2002.
Since its inception, Garguree Swampcare has been dutifully Caring for Country in the Gully area through regular cleaning, weeding, tree planting, remediation, rehabilitation and conservation efforts. The ultimate goal of Garguree Swampcare is to bring regeneration and reconnection to this beautiful site. The area is now beautified and maintained by a dedicated group of volunteers who meet monthly to plant natives and weed out invasive species.
Gundungurra elder, David King, leads the coordination of the group and promotes their activities through Garguree Swampcare on Facebook and the Dingo Darbo Cultural Circle on Facebook.
David King (far left) with the Garguree Swampcare group at the Gully. Image: Blue Mountains City Council
WHAT WE’RE DOING ON CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA DAY
Clean Up Australia Day 2020 is about so much more than picking up rubbish. It’s about Stepping Up to Clean Up - essentially, doing what’s needed to conserve our natural resources and live cleaner, more sustainable lives.
On Sunday 1st March we are joining the Garguree Swampcare group in a general clean up of the Maple Grove Park area, next to Katoomba Falls. This will involve more than picking up rubbish, we will also be weeding and conducting general swampcare.
Maple Grove Park near Katoomba Falls supports an upland swamp and is popular with tourists. Image: Google
Maple Grove Park hosts a high number of tourists and as a result there’s a lot of micro plastic and general waste to be cleaned up. This plastic causes injury and death to Australian and migrating fauna so we will focus on clearing the plastic waste as well as weeding on Clean Up Australia Day.
Gloves, bags and tools will be supplied by the Blue Mountains City Council. Participants are encouraged to wear long sleeves, pants, and enclosed shoes like gum boots (if you own a pair). Supervisors from Swampcare will be on site from 8.30am.
JOIN US
Please join us to clean up Maple Grove Park at Katoomba Falls and support the excellent work of Garguree Swampcare. To register, email us or sign up to the Maple Grove Park clean-up on the Clean up Australia Day website.
And then, show up ready to clean up on the day!
#CleanUpAustralia #StepUpToCleanUp