The successes experienced by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in restoring seabird habitat on Montague Island Nature Reserve will be the focus of a special two day gathering next week (Mon-Tues) in Narooma of experts and land managers interested in applying the same techniques at other islands similarly infested with weeds such as Kikuyu.

As well as learning about Kikuyu management, Island Managers will gather to share their experiences with managing natural island environments.

Five years ago after extensive research and experimentation the NPWS and Charles Sturt University together began what would be a ten year program aimed at controlling Kikuyu, a ferocious grass species that, if left unchecked, would have eventually smothered the island and choked seabird habitat. It would also have remained a very serious fire risk on an island with a long history of lightning strikes.

Backed by more than $200,000 in funding from the NSW Environmental Trust the NPWS program to date has been hugely successful in restoring seabird habitat over a considerable area of the island.

Today the Montague Island Seabird Habitat Restoration Program is widely regarded as a major success story with 7 hectares now devoid of Kikuyu, replaced by a thriving suite of native plants and trees in areas now being recolonised by seabirds, particularly penguins.

The successful formula for eradicating kikuyu was found to be a combination of spraying the kikuyu with a diluted herbicide, burning the treated area and then replanting natives to shade out the regrowth followed by further spraying until natives had become established.

NPWS Area Manager, Preston Cope, said today that the two day gathering will be extremely helpful for other managers across the country.

“There are numerous offshore islands up and down the coast which have very similar issues in relation to weed infestations and their impacts on native flora and fauna.

“Because of the nature of islands, it is in a sense easier to eradicate a pest and keep it at bay than it is on the mainland where there is the constant threat of reinfestation.