Welcome to Willow Warriors
Who are Willow Warriors & what do we do?
Willow Warriors is one of Friends of the Colo's projects and is part of the adventure conservation network. Friends of the Colo was formed in 2000 and incorporated in 2001 to control weeds impacting on the Wollemi National Park and the Colo Catchment in and around the Greater Blue Mountains world Heritage Area.
Our volunteers seek to combine the excitement of bush walking, white-water rafting, flat water kayaking and having fun in the outdoors with Landcare conservation activities which help both private landowners and public land managers look after the natural values of their land.
The Willow Warriors activities current activities fall into 4 categories:
- In the Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment where black willows are a noxious weed we are paddling all of the rivers in our kayaks and rafts and inspecting wetlands to map and, where we have landowner consent, treat Black Willows in a broad scale program to eradicate Black Willows from the catchment. We also paddle rivers where black willows have been removed in the past to treat any growing into view
- Across south east NSW, we paddle rivers and lakes in rafts or kayaks to map and, here we have landowner consent and resources, treat invasive willows to prevent them spreading into National Parks and other areas of high conservation value. Where we map large infestations of seeding willows we report them to the regional weed committee, public land owner and Local Land Services staff to take action, and after the primary control has been completed assist with ongoing monitoring
- We run joint activities with local Landcare groups or National Parks offices where we paddle rivers and lakes and stop to assist the local Landcare group with weed mapping and followup treatment of environmental weeds in areas of high conservation value.
- In the Greater Sydney Region we also run conservation kayaking trips combined with weed control activities generally on National Park estate to help introduce new volunteers to Landcare.
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For information on other Adventure Conservation projects click on this link