The Society has been active in local conservation issues since 1966 and is well networked with the broader conservation movement across NSW.
In addition to conservation issues, the Society staffs a visitor centre on weekends at the Field of Mars Wildlife Refuge. All welcome.
NCC People Power Strategy Training Workshop 10-11 February 2024: online via Zoom
This workshop will give the tools you need to motivate and activate your community to campaign for change. Learn how to achieve powerful wins for nature. The program is organised into four pillars: Storytelling, Strategy, Advocacy and Outreach. There will be dedicated sessions on:
• Powerful ways you can communicate about the issues important to you
• How to develop a winning strategy
• How to get media coverage
• Lobbying your MP
• Recruitment and building people power.
Dates: Saturday 10 February & Sunday 11 February, 1.30pm-5.00pm both days
RSVP to attend: People Power Strategy Training
CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA DAY Sunday 3 March 2024
Our Society will be holding a Clean Up Australia Day event on Sunday 3 March from 10am to 12pm, under the aegis of the Clean Up Australia organisation. If you would like to participate, please email Alfred at alfred.vincent@bigpond.com or leave a message on 9879 6067.
We will be working on areas in the Reserve close to the boardwalk and the creek, between the Monash Road bridge and Pittwater Road.
Bags, gloves and pick-up sticks are provided, though you may prefer to bring your own gardening gloves to be sure of a fit. We will meet at the Visitor Centre; if possible please come a few minutes before 10am to register. Tea and coffee will be on offer. In case of bad weather and/or flooding, we may have to postpone the event, in which case you will be notified by email.
Tickets $2 each / 3 for $5 available at the Field of Mars Visitor Centre (when opened), or pay to Bendigo Bank account:
RYDE HUNTERS HILL FLORA AND FAUNA PRESERVATION SOCIETY, BSB 633-000, Account number 190716589.
Put “Raffle” + your name and phone number in the comment, and we will then make the tickets for you.
Proceeds support the work of our Society.
The winning ticket will be drawn at our Society’s next Annual General Meeting.
* Hand knitted and kindly donated by members of the Holy Spirit Yarnknit Group.
Natural environments are impacted by changes beyond their locality, and this is very evident in the Buffalo Creek estuary downstream from the Field of Mars Visitor Centre.
There is photographic and anecdotal evidence that the creek was both tidal and navigable upstream to the vicinity of the Cascades. We have been told that, until the 1930s, produce from The Cascades farm was taken by boat via Buffalo Creek to the Lane Cove River and then across to a shop in Balmain. And until the 1960s, there was a large waterhole near the Environmental Education Centre building, popular among locals for activities including swimming and prawning until the 1950s when the saltmarsh area was “reclaimed” by Ryde Municipal Council.
The garbage tips drastically reduced the extent of this saltmarsh area but it was not completely eliminated. A saltmarsh still exists near the Strangers Creek confluence and it has been the focus of recent discussions between our Society, City of Ryde Council, and the Field of Mars Environmental Education Centre whose staff embarked on studies with the aim to enhance its preservation.
Meanwhile, silt has been washed into the creek over many years, so the tidal section of Buffalo Creek now ends downstream from Monash Road. The common occurrence of silting in waterways along the east coast of Australia is a result of human settlement.
The Buffalo Creek catchment area has been affected by changes from natural bushland through farming and now residential, commercial and industrial developments.
In the 1950s the creek bed comprised mostly sand and gravel, mostly coming from roads around Ryde as our transport network developed. Most roads are now sealed, but they now contribute silt in the form of soil which becomes the muddy creek bed with which we are now familiar.
Replacement of natural areas with hard surfaces results in increased runoff during rain periods, thus carrying silt – and rubbish – into street drains, and ultimately into the natural waterways. The level is thus raised and the tidal zones with natural saltmarsh communities truncated.
Against this trend we have effects of climate change. It is possible that rising sea levels may increase saltmarsh areas.
But it is not a desirable solution.
Phillip Ward, Editor
The Society has been active in local conservation issues since 1966 and is well networked with the broader conservation movement across NSW.
The Society's Constitution states its Aims and Objectives as:
a. The education of the members and the community, particularly in the local area, in nature conservation and protection of the environment;
b. To promote ecologically sustainable land use and development;
c. To promote nature conservation including an adequate system of national parks, wilderness areas, nature reserves, wildlife refuges and corridors and urban bushland reserves; adequate protection measures for native wildlife;
d. Achieving satisfactory measures to safeguard the environment from all forms of pollution to ensure clean air, clean water and a healthy environment;
e. To work for the permanent retention and conservation of all natural areas in the local district and an increase in the area set aside for nature conservation and
f. To undertake the management of the Field of Mars Reserve with Ryde City Council as a major conservation project
We have a regular newsletter Wallumetta which is issued six times a year which attempts to update members on both local environmental issues and issues of wider impact. Our volunteer members keep the Visitors Centre open each weekend. Please contact us if you have concerns about threats to our local natural areas and the precious native fauna which depend on our sensitive bushland areas and waterways.
In the mid 1960s, with an increasing amount of waste needing disposal, Ryde Council looked to an expansion of the small tip in the Field of Mars Reserve. Council proposed to pipe Buffalo and Stranger's Creeks to facilitate a landfill area to a depth of up to 15m feet which could then be re-developed into playing fields. Local residents united to form the Anti-tip Action Group and lobbied to reverse Council's plans for a tip at the Field of Mars. The tip was moved to Porter's Creek which to this day still requires substantial funds to control the environmental damage arising from past use as a tipsite. With the Field of Mars saved the Society was established in January 1966.
In September 1966, Ryde Council advised the Society that it agreed to their proposal to development of the Field of Mars Reserve as a flora and fauna sanctuary. Hard work over following decades has seen restoration of old degraded areas of the Field of Mars and protection of the area as a Wildlife Refuge. A Visitors Centre was built and then the Environmental Education Centre which is visited by about 10,000 students each year.
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