SOWING THE SEEDS FOR CHANGE: PART 4

We are now 40 years young! We thought it would be fitting to look back at the last decade and how it helped shape our future.

Through the work of staff and volunteers, with the generosity of our donors and supporters, everything we have achieved has truly been home grown with love. The last decade has seen us face some harsh realities but it has given us hope and inspiration for how we can continue to improve our state and face the effects of the increasingly rapid changes in our climate.

Being in the driest state on the driest continent in the world, we have seen our fair share of droughts and heatwaves over the years. We have been no stranger to the harsh realities of our climate, but with seasons becoming shorter and more unpredictable, we now face more challenging working conditions and extreme threats to our environment.

Bushfire recovery has been one of our biggest calls to action over the last ten years. Responding to these fires by bringing our decades of experience to the fore has resulted in the formation of new projects, new volunteers, and brought into sharp focus how we can respond best in a crisis.

In early 2015, the Sampson Flat bushfire burned uncontrolled for four days across 12,500 hectares of land and was just the start of more devastation to come later that year. In November came the devastatingly swift Pinery bushfire. This fire proved how quickly high winds and open fields can cause disaster, burning 82,500 hectares of land. The fire moved with incredible speed not previously seen in a bushfire. Our response was swift. With support from the state government, fellow volunteer organisations and supporters, we strived to help heal the land and make it stronger. It was a time in which South Australians came together for the greater good, something we would need to do time and time again.

In late 2019 and early 2020, the Black Summer Bushfires tore through the country and burnt nearly 300,000 hectares of land across our state, severely affecting the Adelaide Hills, Kangaroo Island, Yorketown, the South East and Lower Eyre Peninsula. This devastation resulted in total or partial destruction of several national parks, extensive loss of wildlife, livestock, and homes. Sadly, three people died. As the fires raged on, our phones did not stop ringing. The support and passion

was overwhelming, with not only South Australians contacting us to get involved, but the rest of the world.

This confirmed the work we’d been doing all these years had helped build a sense of trust within the community. Our ability to respond quickly and effectively in a crisis has informed our actions and goals for the decades ahead.

In response to the amount of people wanting to get involved in recovery efforts we began running bushfire recovery planting days. These planting days allowed the community and our volunteers to go to bushfire affected regions and work together to bring new life to landholder’s properties. Taking Bush Action Teams to Kangaroo Island has been one of our biggest ventures and has received an overwhelming amount of support as our team’s journey across the sea to lend a helping hand. Trees For Life staff and volunteers have been combating invasive weed species that arose from the aftermath of the fires and planting native seedlings to help the island heal.

We also began working in a greater capacity in coastal regions through the ‘Reclaim the Dunes’ project across Holdfast Bay to create greater habitat to protect and enhance the dunes. Our TFL Works team has worked tirelessly on many coastal sites to help restore biodiversity.

Our ‘Stepping Stones into Nature’ program works with new arrivals to Australia to introduce them to our unique native plants and animals and to connect with nature at their own pace. ‘Regenerate’ is another program that brings the benefits of nature to people as therapy to enhance relaxation, allowing those with vulnerable mental health to work in a safe and rewarding space.

These programs and activities have continually improved our relationship with the community and given the people of South Australia more opportunities to take action — encompassing the "home grown with love" mindset that clearly stands out when looking back over the last 40 years.

This last decade has made us more future-focused than ever before, looking at how we can prepare ourselves for the challenges ahead. This led to the creation of two key documents; ‘Strategic Directions’ and our ‘Climate Change Resilience Strategy’ that serve as our foundations for the decades to come. In addition, we have become involved in a number of large-scale projects that further utilise our expertise to protect the future of our landscape.

Healing our land and supporting the community that manages it will continue to be top priorities for the organisation. Through the ‘Paddock Tree Project’, ‘Communities helping Cockies’, and ‘Revitalising Private Conservation in SA’, we have demonstrated how we can play a greater role in protecting and restoring land now and in the future.

The 'Paddock Tree Project', introduced in 2016, addresses the loss of long-standing paddock trees on farmland. By working with landholders we have been able to establish a new generation of South Australian paddock trees to benefit farmers by providing shade and shelter for stock, improving soil quality, and attracting a greater diversity of helpful insects and birds. To date, the project has planted 20,000 paddock trees covering 7,964 hectares of land and shown what can be done at a large scale when we work side by side with landholders.

OPPOSITE PAGE: Volunteers at a planting day.

Surveys show that the managers of all 70 properties where we've planted paddock trees believe the project has allowed them to achieve biodiversity outcomes alongside agricultural outcomes.

– ReLeaf Issue 153, Autumn 2020.

Another important initiative is the 'Cockies Habitat Project', part of 'Communities helping Cockies'. Since 2018, Trees For Life has been restoring habitat in the South East to further revegetate the region while providing crucial habitat for the endangered South-eastern Red-tailed BlackCockatoo (Calyptorhynchus banksii graptogyne). These charismatic birds are fussy eaters — only eating the seeds of brown and desert stringybarks (Eucalyptus baxteri and Eucalyptus arenacea) and buloke (Allocasuarina luehmannii) — and rely on very old, very large trees with hollows for their nests.

Our staff and volunteers have worked hard to collect seed, propagate and plant seedlings to provide valuable food source, habitat and understorey with more than 22,300 seedlings put in the ground. This includes 3,450 buloke and 2,400 stringybark food trees planted as part of the incredible work undertaken in the region.

Without ensuring the security of land we could not continue doing this important work, which is where our involvement in ‘Revitalising Private Conservation in SA’ comes in. Having been extensively involved with the original Native Vegetation Heritage Agreement program we were enthusiastic to get involved with the next iteration.

Forming a partnership with environmental and agricultural producer organisations in 2019, strengthened our relationships with the agricultural sector and lent our expertise to landholders. We’re working together to ensure the protection and conservation of some of the most important ecosystems across our state by expanding the number, extent and quality of protected areas of native vegetation on private land. Through this important work in conservation, Heritage Agreement owners can continue to protect precious native bushland and promote biodiverse ecosystems for generations to come.

As we look beyond our 40th year to the decades ahead, we are prepared and ready for the challenges we face. Our ability to adapt and our unwavering commitment to our mission will hold us in good stead. Come with us South Australia.  For more information on the projects and programs mentioned above please visit treesforlife.org.au.

TOP LEFT: Bush For Life volunteer Alan (left) with Bush For Life staff members Rohan (middle) and Sam (right).

TOP RIGHT: Seed Bank Manager Daniel sorting seed.