Attacking weeds head on

By TANIA MARTIN
THE Shire of Yarra Ranges last week put on display its latest strategy to fight the growing epidemic of weeds.
Shire’s planning and policy officer for the environment department, Owen Gooding, said the council’s goal was to control weeds.
“We (the council) will never be able to eradicate weeds but we can control them,” Mr Gooding said.
In this year’s budget the council allocated an extra $150,000 towards fighting weeds, which includes the control of weeds, education, signage and weed mapping.
The funding also included $25,000 for friends of groups that are communitybased organisations making a commitment to improving the environment.
Mr Gooding said almost half of all environmental weeds start life in domestic gardens before spreading to native bushlands.
He said environmental weeds invade natural areas and compete with indigenous vegetation as well as threatening the survival of native animals and the quality of waterways and creeks.
Mr Gooding said the draft strategy aims to identify new weeds in the area, form plans to attack those weeds and a community weeds education program.
He said many people end up planting weeds, but they are unaware what they actually are.
“Sweet pittosporum is a popular weed that people like for its flowers and orange berries, and are often unaware that it is actually a weed,” Mr Gooding said.
Councillor Clive Larkman said the strategy would identify a range of solutions to help the shire, local industry and community control environmental weeds.
“The strategy will identify the region’s most damaging weeds. It will outline the best ways to control them.
“We need a sound plan to protect our region’s precious biodiversity for future generations,” Cr Larkman said.
Mr Goodman said most environmental weeds were growing in household gardens.
He said weeds and their seeds are easily spread by birds and wind beyond property boundaries or, worse still, are dumped as green waste by the roadside.
The public can comment on the draft strategy, which will be available from Thursday, 4 August on CD from the shire.