Kanamaluka Network News - Winter 2026

Hi all!

Far out the end of Winter has come around quickly. It's been warm, and apparently we are looking at a warm spring as well (anyone else wondering how much the weeds will sprout this year?). It's hard to believe that we launched the Kanamaluka Network at the beginning of the season, June 5th to be exact.

Since launching, we've racked up over 550 hours of direct community support! This has been spread over a variety of groups around the catchment.

Let's have a look at some moments from the past few months.

We've helped the Friends of The Native Garden at Heritage Forest secure new crushed granite for their pathways. It was installed by TAFE students who did an amazing job! It was such a great example of community collaboration. A huge thank you to the City of Launceston for supplying the gravel.

The new pathways have increased the accessibility and appearance. Go and take a look!

We were able to connect teachers from St. Patricks College with the Friends of Machens Reserve. The teachers were able to clear a large infestation of gorse from a section of the reserve, and spread a few piles of mulch for further weed control. Awesome!

Thanks so much to St. Pats for sending out a troop of willing volunteers!

We've been supporting the Friends of Cambridge Street Reserve and Carr Villa Flora Reserve to thin She-Oaks in these two special patches of remnant woodland. While the She-Oaks are native, they are exceptional colonisers and tend to suppress other plants with their thick needle blankets. The Friends drag the cut She-Oaks out of the reserves for the council to chip, which has the added benefit of reducing the fire fuel load in urban reserves and supplying mulch to use as a weed suppressant.

Friends groups often work in close collaboration with land managers such as the City of Launceston.

We continue to support the Friends of Woods Reserve to revegetate sections of Woods Reserve. We held an 'understory restoration' day in late June, and another working bee in late August. So far, around 200 plants have gone in, with more planned.

We were blessed with a great turnout of community members for the Woods Reserve revegetation project.

As part of a National Tree Day event we supported the Friends of Riverside to continue their great work revegetating Walkers Orchard Reserve in Riverside. This is part of an ongoing project, so please reach out if you would like to be involved!

Thanks to the Friends of Riverside for hosting a National Tree Day Event!

In collaboration with the TEER program and Birdlife Tasmania we also helped get the Tamar Estuary Bird Observers Group up and running, with the first meeting held on the 12th of August. We had a great turn out and enjoyed a talk from Dr. Liz Znidersic, who touched on her research and experiences monitoring cryptic bird species. Since the initial meeting, groups have been out and about monitoring at Swan Point and Grindlewald.

Dr. Liz gave a fascinating talk to a room full of enthusiastic birders at the first TEBOG meeting.

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Upcoming events:

As a lot of the community groups we work with operate in natural settings, we share the often frustrating experience of managing invasive plant species, as such we are offering Weed Identification and Management workshops with Axel Meiss of Island Regen.

Beechford - Saturday the 19th of September at the Beechford Community Hall

Exeter - Saturday the 26th of September at the Exeter Community Hub

Please check out the Tamar NRM events page to register, while you're there take a look at the numerous upcoming working bees around the region and consider joining one!

https://www.tamarnrm.com.au/events

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There are groups of amazing people working hard all over the region, creating community solutions to catchment-wide issues. As the Kanamaluka Network, we feel privileged to be the connective membrane working between these groups of passionate Tasmanians.

We aren't the only ones who see value in the Kanamaluka Network's mission to supporting local grassroots initiatives. Tamar NRM is excited to announce that the Kanamaluka Network has received a generous donation from the 4am Foundation. This seed funding will be used for a variety of purposes, such as ensuring our back-end processes are fit-for-purpose, directly supporting local projects through purchasing tools or materials, and potentially organising some Kanamaluka Network swag and a few fun social opportunities.

There is so much going on, and with this funding our capacity to support initiatives across the valley increases substantially. We are extremely excited about the future of this program and can't wait to see how it evolves to best fit the needs of the communities we work with.

If you haven't already, please consider joining the Kanamaluka Network mailing list for updates and opportunities.

See you out there!

The Kanamaluka Network acknowledges and pays respect to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, the Traditional Owners of Tasmania, and the Kanamaluka / Tamar estuary and Esk rivers. We pay respect to the custodians and their elders past and present, and acknowledge their connection with and custodianship of land, sea, and sky Country.