Cheers to Casuarina Coastal Reserve Adopt-a-Spot volunteers
Giving Gamba Grass the boot: Casuarina Coastal Reserve Adopt-a-Spot volunteers winning fight against gamba grass.
The 2023/24 Adopt-a-Spot season has wrapped up in Casuarina Coastal Reserve. To celebrate everyone’s fantastic effort, Darwin parks rangers hosted a BBQ breakfast to thank participants and hear their feedback about the program.
Adopt-a-Spot is an ongoing collaboration between NT Parks and Wildlife, Weed Management branch and a small team of passionate community volunteers who remove isolated gamba grass plants in spots they have adopted across Casuarina Coastal Reserve.
Using an innovative mapping technique, 13 locations were identified containing gamba grass outliers of sufficient low abundance and density for volunteers to easily remove plants by hand pulling or mattock. A 2-year trial program commenced in 2021 and volunteers rolled up their sleeves. The trial finished and participants were keen to continue. They noticed their effort was reducing gamba in their adopted spot and were energised to continue. Re-survey data supports those observations, indicating decreasing gamba abundance and density across adopted spots.
Adopt-a-Spot volunteers contributed nearly 370 hours across all aspects of the project over 2023/24 wet season (equivalent to around 46 ranger days). Cheers volunteers! Great work!
