History
Working Bees
The area of Palmvale is approximately 15 km from the town of Murwillumbah which is near the border between New South Wales and Queensland . We are close to the beaches of Northern New South Wales, such as Cabarita and Pottsville , it is roughly a fifteen minute drive to each. Our valley is mainly farmland with a variety of farming activities occurring ranging from Cattle and Alpacas, to Bananas, Coffee and Mangoes. The valley contains some beautiful pockets of remnant rainforest and a lovely small creek called Christies Creek .
The Palmvale Community Landcare Group (PCLG) was initially formed in October 2000 as a result of a meeting where local landowners and other interested parties. Tweed Landcare representative Kate McKenzie believed there was a need to form a group in this area as there wasn't anyone undertaking Landcare projects in this specific region. Maximum attendance at meetings so far is 17 representing a large proportion of the landowners in the middle to southern region of Palmvale Road .
The first project was agreed to be one that included the community in its scope, therefore it was decided to begin our work on Palmvale Road itself eradicating Camphor Laurels. The advantages of starting on the roadside were:
- road safety by removing the Camphor Laurel trees at narrow corners on the roadside.
- high visibility to promote the groups early work.
- beneficial to everyone living in the area.
- brought in other stakeholders, i.e. Council, Country Energy and Telstra.
We have been successful in obtaining a grant from Natural Heritage Trust funding to help towards tools and poisons for the Groups first initial project. This first project aims to start working on the stage one (small) Camphor trees growing beside the road, and with council permission move onto the larger trees.
This project should help with visibility along the road and keep the Camphor Laurels out of power and telephone lines. We are still experimenting with different methods of killing Camphors and would like input or information from other Landcare groups who could email us on palmvale@yahoo.com.au. We can pass on ideas for you on the best methods and practices in the management of Camphor in the North Coast region via this Website.
Palmvale Landcare Group decided from its inception that education on the environment was important. We concentrated our early efforts on to becoming educated about the local environment. To understand how to approach controlling weeds and what species should be planted to revegetate with native species to enhance diversification.
We have arranged a number of educational functions in conjunction with the Department of Land and Water Conservation (DLWC).
Our first education night was a presentation by Peter Boyd on streams and waterway - giving us information on plant species that help protect waterways and streams against erosion and information regarding our strategies for eradicating Camphor Laurel close to river banks.
Our second educational day, was a Camphor Laurel eradication day. There was a large attendance on this day with people showing interest from outside our group. Bruce Hungerford and Gary Cox (DLWC) demonstrated on two properties, how-to kill a camphor (and other weeds) - using Roundup plus a chain saw and a second method using the Tordon spear. Another educational day is planned in the future for a Plant Identification day, there has been a lot of interest shown by the group in wanting to understand what is already growing in our local area.
As well as educational meetings, the Palmvale Landcare have organised several working bees. We aiming for a working bee every four weeks. The working bees so far have been to eradicate weeds such as Singapore Daisy and Camphor Laurels.
We also have been helping our local Hall Restoration Committee who are restoring the 80 year old Reserve Creek Hall by providing our labour to plant Lilly Pilly's as a hedge to beautify the local community hall. This hall will be our future venue for meetings where there is a black board to advertise and hopefully attract people to our group. We have recorded our working bees to date by taking photographs. (digital)
Our Group is incorporated under the umbrella of Tweed Landcare Incorporated.
