Sue Jones has, for years, been an inspiration for a wide range of Mt Gravatt community members from Meals on Wheels to Mansfield Melody Makers. My contact with Sue started about 10 years ago when she introduced me to the Habitat Brisbane Bushcare programme and mentored me as I established Fox Gully Bushcare.
Sue has been defending the special habitat of Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve for years. However, she has decided that is time to hand leadership of Gertrude Petty Place Bushcare over to the next generation.
Bushcare requires a long term focus. Restoration of Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve is repairing damage done by logging over 100 years ago before visionary Mt Gravatt community members who lobbied for creation of the Reserve. Sue builds on that tradition engaging diverse community members in the restoration: Griffith Students Deliver Results.
I have had the honour of partnering with warrior Sue to successfully tackle the ongoing problem of illegal mountain bike riding damaging plants and causing erosion. Threats: Downhill Mountain Biking, Trail Bikes & Unofficial Tracks
Sheamus building the Future
Mt Gravatt SHS Team
Sheamus also believes in community action to build our future and has been contributing to restoration of Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve starting when he was still attending Mt Gravatt State High School. Mt Gravatt SHS students planting their future
Sheamus Water Warrior
Sheamus has already been identified as an environmental warrior. Graduated from Griffith University Sheamus is now sharing his passion for the environment and science, teaching the next generation at Whites Hill State College.
Volunteer to help Sheamus build our future
The Gertrude Petty Place Bushcare team meets monthly on the last Saturday of the month 8am to 10am.
Grab a friend and join other generous and passionate community members working with Sheamus to build a strong Bushcare team.
August to January is Koala breeding season with most young (called a joey) born over the summer months.
That means I am receiving an increasing number of reports of Koala sightings like Sue’s report:
“I was awoken at 4 am by a dreadful noise in our yard – blood curdling screaming. Couldn’t get back to sleep. At 5 am the local birds let me know some ‘foreign’ creature was still around.
I took this photo of a Koala which had just leapt off our back terrace into one of our gums. He was roaring loudly as he ascended the tree. He then spent the day sleeping in an adjacent Tallowwood. He looked well fed and healthy.
Upon later investigation I found Koala fur and droppings all over the terrace. I wonder whether two Koalas may have been involved.” Sue Jones
The Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve now has a healthy and growing Koala population. This is a great opportunity for our community and a great responsibility: we have been given a second chance. You can help by:
reporting Koala sightings – email photo/s (phone camera is fine – evidence is important not photo quality), approximate location, date and time – email megoutlook@gmail.com
Neighbours, Roger and Margaret called a short while ago. A Koala had just come down one tree and jumped across to another tree in the gully.
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Looks young and definitely male.
It’s a boy
Breeding season has started so the males will be on the move.
Koalas are particularly to dog attack when they are on the ground moving between trees. So it is important that dogs are kept on a leash when visiting Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve.
Mt gravatt run – Uploaded by swaggydave on 17 Aug 2011
2011 Mt Gravatt SHS – National Tree Day Planting
“We felt gutted seeing the damage they had done. The irony is, that if we, CVA volunteers and Griffith Uni student volunteers hadn’t cleared out the area, they wouldn’t have been able to get through there!”
Susan Jones was talking about finding that mountain bikers have established a brand new trail right through the middle of the area restored by Mt Gravatt SHS students in 2011
No Motor Bikes No Mountain Bikes
and being prepared for our July 25 National Tree Day planting. The action was quite deliberate and systematic as the sign was thrown away and sapling Brush Box, Soapy Ash and Wattles were sawn off as well as broken down.
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Mountain
Biking is illegal in Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve
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Mountain biking is not allowed in the Reserve. Signs at the Summit and at Gertrude Petty Place clearly state “No Motor Bikes No Mountain Bikes”.
Rider ignores No Bike sign
The bike in the video above actually leaves the road and takes a track straight past a No Bikes sign. Click on photo to enlarge. v
The mountain biking is not only illegal it is also damaging a unique environment that our community has fought to protect for over one hundred years: Mt Gravatt Historical Society, tells us that up till July 1893 the mountain and surrounds were designated as a railway timber reserve. In response to community pressure the Queensland Government of the time protected this special habitat by declaring the Reserve.
Mountain bike riders are actively destroying mountain habitat
Susan showing cut sapling
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I inspected the latest damage this week with Susan Jones. What really stunned us was the systematic habitat destruction with saplings sawed or broken off and used to make jumps for riders. Cut and broken trees included a four metre Early Black Wattle Acacia leiocalyx just about to flower. Early Black Wattle is the caterpillar food plant for Imperial Hairstreak Jalmenus evagoras, a beautiful butterfly which is returning to the mountain with the restoration of our bushcare sites. Other trees destroyed included Soapy Ash Alphitonia excelsa, caterpillar food plant for Small Green-banded Blue butterflies Psychonotiscaelius, Brush Box Lophostemon confertus, caterpillar food plant for the
Butterfly trees chopped up for bike jump
fascinating Four-Spotted Cup Moth Doratifera quadriguttata.
Many Lomandras have been destroyed by the action of bikes, including a flowering (male) Many Flowered Mat-rush Lomandra multiflora, caterpillar food plant for Brown Ochre Trapezites iacchus and Black-ringed Ochre Trapezites petalia butterflies: two of forty-five butterfly species found in the Reserve.
Young trees destroyed to make a bike track
It is hard to show the enormity of the damage. None of the trees were very large but the collage of cut stumps gives some idea of the number of trees destroyed to create track for entrainment of a small number of people.
And by the looks of it this is only the start. Following the track down from the Summit we found yellow markers tied to trees, not only along the track but also what appears to be planned as a new track taking off to the south. Trees had been cut or broken and yellow tape tied to others. It seems that this new track planning was only stopped when the tape ran out … evidenced by the empty spool discarded in the bush.
Further evidence of expansion plans is the cache of tools we found locked to a tree just near the path.
Yellow tape marking out track expansion plans
Track clearing tools locked to a tree
Our community investment
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Seeing the wanton destruction of our special habitat made me very angry, not just because of the personal impact on me, but also because this action ignores the huge ongoing contribution our community is making.
Conservatively calculated, Mt Gravatt Environment Group is responsible for over $30,000 in volunteer contribution during the 2011/12 financial year.
Over the same period our community has invested $19,905 in grants from Queensland Government, Brisbane City Council and Southside Sport & Community Club.
Donations and direct investments by community members exceeded $8,000.
Ongoing support and investment by BCC Habitat Brisbane program: plants for revegetation, equipment, training and public liability insurance.
Sue has been defending the special habitat of Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve for years. However, she has decided that is time to hand leadership of Gertrude Petty Place Bushcare over to the next generation.
Mount Gravatt Environment Group 
