Project update – September 2020

With wattles blooming and lambs relishing the green pastures – spring has arrived at Ginninderra.

After a horrendous hot, dry and bushfire smoke-filled summer, it’s encouraging to see the spring growth and green landscape that has emerged from good rainfall across autumn and winter. The signs of spring are all the more welcome after the extended impacts of COVID-19 across the country, and indeed the world.

We’re very happy to report the excellent growth and progress of the 5000 shrubs planted by community volunteers in the Box Gum Woodland and Dry Forest sites in 2017 and 2018. Some of these plots now feature shrubs towering over 3-4 metres and visible evidence of the return of native bird species.

Despite the unprecedented challenges associated with COVID-19, the Canberra hailstorm and bushfires, our team has been making steady progress on conservation activities as well as the preliminary planning for future urban use at Ginninderra.

On the far north of the site, near Wallaroo Road, a trial has been established to help support the survival of Blakely’s Red Gum, an iconic species of the Box-Gum Grassy Woodlands. With this species suffering from dieback, CSIRO and the ACT Government are partnering in provenance trials to compare the survivability of Blakely’s Red Gum trees grown from seed collected from different parts of Australia. Ginninderra is among four sites in the trials and seed is being provided by CSIRO’s Australian Tree Seed Centre.

As part of the grassland restoration trials in partnership with the Ginninderra Catchment Group, research activities are also continuing at the five sites on the Ginninderra property.

Our Project Team continues to work through preliminary planning, environmental and technical studies that will help to inform the proposed future sustainable development at Ginninderra East.

As part of this, CSIRO has also been meeting via teleconference with the relevant Commonwealth and ACT agencies to work through matters of traffic, infrastructure, environment and heritage.

Stay tuned to this website for further news about further activities and developments.