Volunteers dig deep

Boorowa Landcare welcomed volunteers from North Sydney and the community on 29 May to help plant thousands of native bushes and trees at the annual Building Bridges to Boorowa event. This community planting weekend event first started in the year 2000 and is hosted annually in partnership between Boorowa Community Landcare Group, North Sydney Council Bushcare and Hilltops Council. Along with welcoming 40 Landcarers and volunteers, both from North Sydney and more locally, Boorowa Landcare also hosted Southwest Slopes of NSW, Landcare Australia Chair Peter Garrett AM. Over the course of the weekend program the volunteers planted more than 3000 trees across three properties. Boorowa Landcare's Amber Kelly said they made a start on the Friday planting 1000 trees at a property north of Boorowa, before planting another 1600 trees on Saturday morning at a second property and made a start at a third property on Saturday afternoon to plant 500 more trees. Ms Kelly said they also welcomed Pete Garrett and Steve Bunnell, Chair of the National Landcare Network and Chair of Landcare NSW as well as Paul Della Libera, Head of Natural Capital & Landcare CarbonSMART who came to meet with landcareres and see what the program was about. The weekend was finished up on Sunday with 500 more trees planted. Amber said one of the reasons this program has continued so long is having a good relationship between Landcare, Hilltops Council and North Sydney Council and continued support from the organisaitons. Over the last 26 years more than 80,000 trees have been planted in the wider Boorowa area, with Ms Kelly saying one of the biggest benefits of this huge planting effort has been supporting biodiversity and habitats for the superb parrot. Ms Kelly said beyond that the trees also helped manage erosion, salinity and created windbreaks on properties for farmers. "The benefits from an environmental perspective and a farm management perspective are significant and that's why people are willing to keep doing it," she said. Coming up next for the Boorowa Landcare will be a fruit tree pruning workshop on 2 July.