Bushcare crew saving at risk ecosystem one weed at a time

Thursday morning at Maroubra Beach. The tide washes low, and the sand has just been smoothed down by a council worker dragging a sandboni. Over by the coastal scrub, around 16 volunteers kneel among the dunes, clothed in their hardwear boots and dirt-stained trousers. Slowly, but surely, they are restoring the scrub one weed at a time.

And this program is one of the key protections standing in the way of the extinction of one of Australia’s rarest ecosystems.

The Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub (ESBS) is listed as a critically endangered species both under Commonwealth and NSW law, one of the rarest ecological communities in Australia. Since settlement in 1788, the scrub once covered 5,300 hectares of Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. Today, less than 150 hectares remain, barely existing as the last one to three per cent left of the area’s vital ancient sand dunes.

Emily Strautins is Randwick City Council’s bushland officer, supervising bushcare programs for over six years following a career spent largely in conservation. Strautins says rather than one event, the destruction through urbanisation of the habitat for wildlife had been the main issue.

“The biggest threat to Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub is clearing relating to urbanisation,” she says. “As patches become fragmented and smaller, they are more prone to weeds, damage and loss of biodiversity.”

As biodiversity weakens, she adds, so does the scrub’s ability to recover.

“As a critically endangered ecosystem, it is this biodiversity which supports its resilience; for example, without the right birds and pollinators, seed isn’t produced, providing reduced habitat for other animals.”

The latest session is a chance to see just how much rare native wildlife calls the scrub home. A Jacky dragon basks in the sun on top of a pile of lantana. Strautins has a rare encounter with a She-oak skink, only the third time she’s ever seen one in her career.

In the scrub’s dwindling pockets, a scattering of Maroubra Woodland snail shells are found, a positive sign they are breeding after a mass decline from the habitat destroying bitou bush weed and land clearing. 

These animals need the scrub to survive.

But the story of the ESBS isn’t just about plants; it’s the people who give their time to save them. 

“Our program aims to reconnect people to the unique diversity of life which share their suburbs,” says Strautins. 

“Without this connection, extinction rates are likely to continue. Yet as people connect with place, with community, be that ecological and/or social, networks are strengthened, and all are happier, healthier and more resilient.”

In the Malabar Headland, a group of volunteers have been working to regrow the scrub for over 40 years. One member, Therese Weiss, secretary of Friends of Malabar Headland, was a driving force in the group’s efforts to have the east and west headland gazetted as a National Park in 2012 and 2016.

“We love the bush, and see the value in conserving the unique ESBS as well as the surrounding plant communities which support it,” she says. “We come back because we enjoy the work, see the results, and meet like-minded people.”

It’s very rewarding to see weeds disappear and natives grow back and thrive.

Therese Weiss

For Strautins, she finds what’s good for the volunteers is good for the land, adding there are ample social, physical and emotional benefits for the people who get involved. 

“Working together outside is great for physical fitness no matter your age or ability,” she says. “It’s certainly a great mental health boost being outside, whether your preference is for meditative quiet or making social connections over shared morning tea.”

Weiss has her own way of describing it, calling it “bush liberation”.

For her, it’s simple: “It’s very rewarding to see weeds disappear and natives grow back and thrive.”

But not everybody comes to the bush for the same reasons. Weiss says the crowd today has shifted over the years. Now the Thursday volunteers are mostly “energetic retired or semi-retired people from their 50s up to mid- to late-80s, 85 plus,” she adds.

But it wasn’t always this way. A Sunday bushcare group that ran from 2010 to 2022 used to pull in younger people: university students and Duke of Edinburgh participants. Since regrouping after the COVID lockdown, only the weekly Thursday group remains, and with not as many young volunteers.

Weiss says that National Parks and Wildlife Services have revived the Sunday program for once-monthly bushcare sessions in the west of the park, drawing younger faces again.

“[They are] people in their 20s to 40s depending on their work and study schedule, including some young UK visitors,” says Weiss. 

 

A 2025 national report presented at Parliament House and led by Sydney University researchers Michelle Lim and Ben Smith found 43 per cent of young people aged 15 to 25 feel lonely.

Additionally, those who had low community participation were twice as likely to feel isolated, however, just a weekly social catch-up with friends or family cuts loneliness risks threefold.

According to a 2024 report from the Council of Ageing, loneliness is also evident for over 60 per cent of adults aged 50 and over in NSW. 

While grabbing a fistful of Turkey Rhubarb weed and tossing it into a bucket, Karen Fisher, one of the group’s long-standing volunteers, has started doing bushcare more frequently in her recent retirement.

“It’s given me something to get up for,”she says. “You go from having somewhere to be almost everyday, to having not much to do.

“When I first moved to Sydney, I also didn’t know anybody. This filled those gaps.”

Bushcare groups, claim advocates, play an important role, not as a fix, but as a steady and non-committal activity, being free, regular, mindful, outdoors, and a physical community activity. 

A 2023 study sponsored by Conservation Volunteers Australia backs this idea from a different angle. The study of migrant volunteers in Tasmania discovered that for people experiencing loneliness and disconnection, conservation activities like weeding and bushcare gave them much more than just something to do – it fostered a sense of belonging.

 

Both Fisher and Strautins make a similar point; young people, they say, are the future caretakers of this place. 

Claudia, a 22-year-old student studying environmental science at the University of NSW, and one of the group’s regular volunteers, says she feels fulfilled in the task, “even if I do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day’.

“I know I’ve done something to give back, and that grounds me,” she adds. “It gives me a sense of accomplishment.”

Claudia’s also blunt about why more people her age aren’t joining in.

“I don’t know how more people don’t know about this,” she says. “It’s probably because it’s not trending on TikTok yet.”

Both volunteers were adamant that the need for more hands is real.  

“Recovery needs constant effort, and we have by no means covered all the areas,” says Strautins.

“And the weeds continue to invade! It would be great to get more people, and for National Parks and Wildlife Service to engage contractors for some of the more intensive or difficult work.”

Randwick Mayor Clare Willington says restoration efforts of the ESBS can be made in other ways.

“The ESBS recovery depends on all of us creating more habitat wherever we can, from backyards, apartment gardens and nature strips,” she adds. 

“Every indigenous plant helps reconnect fragmented pockets of bushland, which is why I encourage residents to source plants from Council’s Community Nursery or IndigiGrow and become part of the restoration effort.” 

The survival of the scrub Strautins says depends upon this programme, and the programme depends upon its volunteers. 

For volunteers who show up week after week, the appeal isn’t much about weeding at all. It’s to protect and connect. 

“Our bushcare networks contain people from all walks of life, coming together to contribute to a shared positive outcome,” she says. “With an increasingly divided world, what could be more powerful than that!?”

Main image of bushcare volunteers weeding lantana. Photo by Jessica Campbell.