Project Teams Transform Eight-Mile Creek

Nesting boxes for animals and birds are being placed in trees throughout the parkland

Development at Eight Mile Creek parkland corridor, on the north-eastern outskirts of Albury, continues to keep this place of great natural beauty to the forefront in the outstanding network of parks managed by parklands.

The parkland follows some 14km of waterways — mostly along the course of the Eight Mile Creek, but also including sections of Nine Mile Creek and Woolshed Creek.

Projects completed since work began at Eight Mile Creek in autumn 1998 include:

• The planting of some 8000 under-storey plants
• Some 12.km of direct drilling of under-storey species seeds
• Extensive new bridgework and fencing
• Fence, track and stile maintenance
• A management plan, prepared by Natural Resource Management students at Riverina Institute of TAFE's nearby National Environment Centre at Thurgoona.

Now nesting boxes for animals and birds are being placed in trees throughout the parkland.

Designed and made by Design and Technology students at Murray High School, the boxes are expected to benefit a broad range of fauna including sugar gliders, red rumped parrots, ring tail possums, kookaburras, bats, owls and galahs.

Teacher Tony Zerbst said students designed the boxes after consulting Gould League experts. Work for the Dole participants and Green Corps members have helped Murray High students make or place the nesting boxes which are expected to benefit fauna until the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation's extensive tree plantings in the area mature.

Work on the other projects at Eight Mile Creek parkland has been undertaken by Regional Skills Inc, Work for the Dole participants, Australian Trust for Conservation volunteers, Green Corps, Albury Lands Protection Board, and Greening Australia.