I attended an information evening about Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s (AWC) wonderful work in protecting Australia’s ecosystems at scale. CEO Tim Allard’s session was not only inspiring, but optimistic. Optimism and joy is often missing in climate and biodiversity discussions. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kurt and Charlie from Co-Exist Australia. Another dynamic duo doing important repair at scale!

Meet the Eurasian blackbird, known as Manu Pango here in NZ. Or 4 of them to be precise! These guys, although introduced do some pretty good work along side our beautiful native birds. Turns out their best work is in the garden and not so much at caring for their young, as they eject their babies from the nests in our shed for us to do the hard yards. Often birds eject their new fledglings and tend to them from above - but these guys were barely feathered and easy prey for our chooks and of course our beautiful wekas. Soon these guys will be off back into the wild to do their thing ♥️

Carbon Emissions Rankings: 1st - China 2nd - United States 3rd - India 4th - Russia 5th - Japan 6th - Iran 7th - Germany 8th - South Korea 9th - Saudi Arabia 10th - Indonesia

Removed some balloon vine growing amongst paperbarks along the footpath in Whipbird park. I had a lovely chat with a local resident. Anne had inquired about joining the local Bushcare group, but it is no longer active. I showed her Greenbrand.org and how it records stories and impact. You can see the removed vines on the grass on picture 2.

I planted the remaining 6 free trees I was gifted, 5 bottlebrush and a grevillea. I did some weeding so council can easily see the plantings, and also watered the previous plantings as we missed the recent storms. It’s looking quite nice and lush now. Amazing what one person can do. I also removed a glycine vine that was loaded with seed pods. Removed via the roots, so can’t regrow, and I removed the vine and seeds so they can’t germinate. An hour well spent!

I walk or jog past this tree a few times a week. It’s in the process of being smothered by glycine vine. On Saturday afternoon it took 30 seconds to save by cutting the vine stems. The leaves in the canopy will die, the tree will continue to grow. And as I pass it often, any regrowth will be simple to remove.

I attended 2024’s last King’s College UQ Bushcare session on Sunday morning. During the two hours there I worked with residents Ned and Sam to remove glycine and balloon vine from trees planted some years previous. The White Cedar would have died without our intervention. Countering the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change are not just about planting trees, it’s their nurturing and survival as well.

Did a volunteer day planting trees at Archerfield wetlands with Green Australia with some of the NAB team for an enjoyable to help out our local community! Overall we planted around 1200 plants and helped revitalise the land locally!

My partner just bought an MG electric vehicle. MG has dropped the price of its new electric vehicles till the end of October, eg a new MG Excite 51 EV is $30,990 drive away. So now we are a 2 EV car family - I've owned a 2010 Mitsubishi iMiev for 10 years, 14 years old and still going strong.

This story is just to illustrate one of the many impacts you can make. No matter how small. Each matters. This praying mantis was sitting on the front door screen, an easy target for the local cats and birds. Do I took it to my back yard, with lots of potential food and shelter. Not quite a kangaroo Joey being saved after mum being hit by a car, but you get the idea. All nature counts. And I used the privacy setting for the map, so I don’t ‘dox’ myself! lol

While I was getting my car serviced at joy motors I spent some time removing glycine vine from lillypillies near the mechanics. These trees were over 2 metres tall but had been cut near the base as they were smothered in vines. Sadly this was happening again. And the solution is so simple. Pull the vines out by the roots, and do the same in future maintenance. No poisons. No pruning. So so simple

My friend’s dad was given some grevilleas and callistemon for free from Toowoomba council which he was going to throw away. They were given to me and I planted 5 of them in the biobasin. You can see my earlier plantings of casuarinas are much taller than me ❤️ I also picked up some rubbish. A very productive and enjoyable hour. 😇

Meeting heaps new friends at the People planet Pint event in Brisbane. And I picked up some rubbish along the way to the event! Doing some good for our world can be fun and mentally rewarding.

Here at the planet, people pint evening with Keerthi! And I picked some rubbish along the way.

The council lawn mowers got to the rubbish before I did sadly. Mowing over rubbish just makes things worse. 😢

Did another of my semi-regular clean-ups near the 7-eleven, KFC and Starbucks. I had been feeling a bit down after scrolling some analysis of movies I’m fond of about corporations and modern life, Idiocracy, Fight Club, Office Space and Falling down. But we don’t have to blow up buildings or fight with violence. As I was picking up some of the over 250 pieces of branded corporate detritus, a lady in a car stopped and said ‘thank you’. Made my day 😊

I picked up rubbish from the floor

I’m attending the 3rd annual Australian Biosecurity Symposium on the Gold Coast. Seeing some familiar faces from 2 years ago, and making new connections and learning as always.