Community comes together for the Arum Lily Blitz

The first year of the three year Arum Lily Blitz has seen excellent results due to the contributions made by hundreds of people – landholders, government agencies, donors, volunteers, spray contractors, community groups, businesses and champions willing to stand up for the campaign.

The following provides a quick snapshot of the progress made in this first year:

  • 624 properties registered as actively controlling arum lily across 10,800 hectares.
  • 255 people collected free herbicide. So far 155 of these landholders have provided data on their work this year – a total of 800 hours work, spraying 13,700 litres.
  • Contractors completed 1000 hours arum lily control on 66 private properties across 2600 ha.
  • 124 hours work in the National Park at Calgardup, Wooditjup and Cowaramup.
  • 35 hours of spraying in the National Park at Prevelly. With control also being undertaken across the entire Prevelly Caravan Park site and many of the adjoining properties a fantastic start has been made on arum lily control in this area.
  • 27.5 hours spraying completed in the Margaret River foreshore reserve.
  • Overall control was undertaken by spray contractors on a cost share basis across a total of 2770 hectares.
  • The map below show properties registered with the Blitz. In some areas, such as Margaret River and Redgate, we are building on existing work. However in most other areas the maps show properties that have come on board in this first year of the campaign.

Community volunteers working in the National Park:
The Yallingup LCDC volunteers started their work last year to get a headstart before the Blitz began. The area around Yallingup was divided in to 50 x 50 metre quadrats and volunteers assessed the arum lily density of 970 quadrats totalling an incredible 242 ha.  This mapping enabled control work to be prioritised as well as providing baseline data. This year the volunteers got trained up and began their spray program to control arum lily in the National Park. In conjunction with control being undertaken by Caves Caravan Park an excellent start has been made to protecting the values of Yallingup and surrounds.

The Friends of the Cape to Cape Track volunteers undertook arum lily mapping of the 124 km length of the Cape to Cape track. As with the Yallingup work the mapping will enable control work to be prioritised and will provide baseline data. Many volunteers are keen to take on the job of arum lily control and we will work with the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions to achieve this.

Demonstrating effective arum lily control:
A monitoring site has been developed in the National Park at Boranup to enable arum lily control to be evaluated and demonstrated. Density mapping using 20 x 20 metre quadrats, vegetation transects and photo point monitoring were established prior to control being undertaken across approximately 13 ha. Thank you to Adrian Fini, Gavin Bunning, Bill Castelden, Penny Bower, Grant Johnston, Janet Holmes a Court, Gilbert George, Bill Breidhal and Phil Finch for contributing funding to make this work possible.