Cats Claw Creeper and other serious environmental weeds in the region will soon be targeted for control as part of the Upper North Coast Environmental Weeds Project.
Until now, no strategic and coordinated funding has been available for control of environmental weeds in the region. The Project, initiated by the Upper North Coast Catchment Management Board, is being managed by the NSW North Coast Weeds Advisory Committee. The area covered by the project is the Clarence, Bellinger and Coffs catchments.
Project Manager Mr Tim Scanlon said “the project will help tackle priority environmental weeds like cats claw creeper in the Upper Clarence catchment.”
“Cats claw creeper currently infests over 160km of riverbank and severely threatens all streambank vegetation downstream as well as river access, bridges, buildings and other infrastructure and habitat for fish including the threatened Eastern Freshwater Cod. Trees in this area of the Clarence and Timbarra River are currently being stripped of all branches by the weed. Similar scenes are being observed on the Bellinger River from other vine weeds such as madeira vine.”
Other environmental weeds being targeted under the project include coastal weeds such as bitou bush and glory lily. New and emerging weeds are being targeted before they become fully established in the region.
The funding is being targeted towards control of high priority environmental weed infestations in high priority areas. Projects to be advertised for the first year of funding are:
. Written and authorised by Tim Scanlon, NSW North Coast Weeds Advisory Committee.