Toward Gorse Eradication in Piper's River, annual round up

The annual report for the gorse eradication project in the Piper's River catchment has just come in from the Project's Coordinator, Kay Bailey. This ongoing weed management program has been extremely successful, largely due to Kay's zeal and commitment to gorse management from the participating land owners.

Gorse - Ulex europaeus

A quick bit of background- The project started in 2021 with funding from the state Government's Weed Action Fund, with phase 1 ending in 2024. This marks the end of the second year of phase 2, which is due for completion at the end of June 2027. Let's take a closer look at the past year.

An additional four sites were added during the past year, representing 0.7ha of gorse. This brings the total size of gorse infestations within the project area to 139.97ha. Of the 78 total sites, 64 had applied treatments, resulted in over 77ha of gorse infestations receiving management intervention in the past year. This is just under 90% of program participants, actively managing over half (55%) of known gorse infestations in the catchment. This is a multi-year project, as such these outcomes are considered significant progress toward the project's goal, which is that monitoring and treatment is undertaken at all sites annually with no new gorse seeds making their way into the seedbank.

A traffic light system is used to rate infestation zones within each project site (often a single site will have multiple zones). Red denotes that no effective gorse management has occurred, with untreated flowering plants. Orange denotes that the zone has been monitored with some treatment, though flowering plants are still present. Green denotes the zone is actively monitored, with no flowering plants located in the last twelve months.

91% of zones within the project sites have either maintained or improved their rating over the past year, which further indicates the commitment to the project outcomes from both the coordinator and participants.

The project is further supported by activities such as a free herbicide giveaway, which were held in Piper's River and Lilydale during the peak spraying seasons. Landowners were able to bring their spray units to be filled with the correct herbicide mix, which lowers barriers toward treatment and aids progress towards the projects aims.

Two working bees were also held in Spring 2025 and Autumn 2026 by members of the Lilydale Landcare group to cut and paint gorse at Merthyr Park Recreation Reserve.

At this stage, the project will continue for another year, before being reviewed by the Steering Committee to ascertain the future direction.

Tamar NRM would like to thank Kay for her amazing work. We would also like to thank the landowners committed to minimising the impact of gorse across the Piper's region, and all those that have engaged with the projects other events and activities. This project is a wonderful example of longitudinal invasive species management across a regional scale, with real world outcomes based on community partnerships and hard work.

If you have any questions regarding the Piper's River Gorse project, please contact Project Coordinator Kay Bailey at kaybailey321@gmail.com