Giles Conservation Park
Continuing the work we have been involved with controlling the Muraltia outbreak centred around Norton Summit, Katie and Brian have been working in Giles Conservation Park.
This means, the Friends are finalising formal permission from the Department for Environment and Water to do bushcare work in Giles Conservation Park.
Until now, Giles was a mystery to me. I had heard reports of it being swamped with Watsonia and Ornithogalum. So when I went for a short walk on Sunday 14 June, I was really surprised to see some really good understorey, with a lovely tree canopy. There is evidence that where I was walking it was burned relatively recently.
Nature Maps shows me that sections of the park were burnt in 2020, 2023 and 2025.
There are pockets of Watsonia that could be worked on and lots of young broom seedlings that would be readily hand pulled. I think that a few willing volunteers would make a substantial difference to the area.
Post burn is an ideal time to make a very large difference to weed load if we can get them under control before they set seed, and the weed cycle starts again.
If you are interested in getting involved with a bushcare project in Giles please let me know. It is important that all volunteer work be recorded to ensure our insurance requirements are met. By recording volunteer hours in Giles, we may be able to attract further funding to assist with the management of the Park.
Currently also working in Giles are another couple who have a project to protect a rare native plant. The plant is so rare, I have not been able to find any official record of it in Giles, nor any incidental sightings in Citizen Science platforms. I am meeting up for a site visit with these bushcarers who are also members of Campbelltown Landcare later this month.
Other ways you can help bring Giles to life.
As we are taking on Giles as a project, I have done some initial investigation of the species that are found there.
Native species of significance include:
Fishbone Water-fern (Rare)
Scented Bush-pea (Rare)
Candlebark Gum (Rare)
Manna Gum (Rare)
Narrow-lip Spider-orchid (Rare)
Great Sun-orchid (Rare)
Many-flowered Spear-grass (Rare)
Heath Bent-grass (Rare)
Shade Tussock-grass (Rare)
Spoon-leaved Spyridium (Rare)
Brown Broodfrog (Rare)
Restless Flycatcher (Rare)
Scarlet Robin (Rare)
Painted Buttonquail (Rare)
Yellow-footed Antechinus (Vulnerable)
Common Brushtail Possum (Rare)
And a number of introduced plants (weeds) of concern:
Cootamundra Wattle
Sallow Wattle
Three-cornered Garlic
Cape Weed
Tree Lucerne
Common Pampas Grass
Cotoneaster
English Broom
Tree Heath
Fennel
Narrow-leaved Ash
Freesia
Montpellier Broom
Wild Gladiolus
Yorkshire Fog
Cape Tulip
Variable Ixia
African Furze (Muraltia)
Olive
Scotch Thistle
Radiata Pine
Rice Millet
Sweet Pittosporum
Blowfly Bush
Dog Rose
Blackberry
Willow
African Daisy
Apple Of Sodom
Gorse
Blue Periwinkle
Bulbil Watsonia
White Arum Lily
So there is a lot we can do to mitigate the risk to the local ecosystem and associated threatened plants and animals.
The species lists are just preliminary at this stage. There are a number of sources we can draw from including Nature Maps and the Atlas of Living Australia (which incorporates iNaturalist). The raw data needs to be checked for geospatial accuracy and whether the species is likely to be present in the park i.e. the quality of the observations before we publish species lists on our website.
We also need to develop a park page for Giles giving the park an introduction and adding some suitable photos.
Other opportunities to help include developing an action plan for the park, and on the ground bushcare work.
If you have an interest in Giles and would like to be involved in any of these things, or perhaps there is a special interest you have that is aligned with the Friends' activities, please get in contact me me to discuss how we might realise this.
Our Website
Volunteer hours
I have turned on another feature our website offers This feature allows volunteer hours to be tracked. It does involve a little more admin work when running an event, but will make our membership officer's life easier to keep track of volunteer hours. This is especially relevant for working out who is eligible for Park Passes (40 hours on-park volunteer work per year).
Other uses the data might be used for are members or non-members wishing to keep a record of their volunteer hours for study or Centrelink.
You can see your own volunteer hours since we started recording them this month in your member profile under Volunteering History.
Website responsiveness
Our provider (ClubExpress) continues to have ongoing issues with a Distributed Denial of Service attack.
The website response has improved, but there continues to be some unexpected things happening from time to time. I think that these are the result of ClubExpress taking action to block excessive traffic. It has the unintended consequence of occasional glitches with a frozen screen or peculiar message. Please be patient, and try refreshing your screen to see if this helps. Sometimes it is a matter of trying again later.
I restate that the issues relate to a Distributed Denial of Service attack and at no time has the integrity of the security of the website been compromised. All member data is safe.
Here is the latest message from Club Express:
Dear ClubExpress Admins,
As noted in our prior communication, ClubExpress recently became aware of disruptions involving our platform. In response, we quickly took steps with the assistance of outside technical resources, to ensure the security of the platform and investigate the cause of the disruption. Through the diligent efforts of our internal and external resources we were able to securely restore our platform to stable functionality on 06/25/2026.
Although our investigation into the full nature and scope of the disruption remains ongoing, we determined that the disruption was caused by a large increase of traffic to the platform. We can provide relevant updates should our investigation uncover any substantive changes. We will follow up as we learn more.
Regards,
Geoffrey Walsh
Director of CS Operations