Environment
From Greening Glebe to Sustainability
The Glebe Society has had a strong commitment to environmental issues since its foundation, but the emphasis has changed over the years, in line with changing concerns in society generally. In the early years the focus was on ‘greening Glebe’ with encouragement of both public parks and private gardens. More recently, issues of sustainability and […]
Posts about Environment
Glebe’s Hill: Bunyip Tails? What the cameras saw
Posted on 1st July 2024
Join us for the next instalment of the Innovation and Ideas grant project on the biodiversity of Glebe’s Hill – a ‘walkshop’ with Prof. Dieter Hochuli and Genevieve Heggarty titled: Exploring Glebe’s wild spaces – the fauna and flora of The Hill and Johnstons Creek.
A nymph at Orphan School Creek!
Posted on 28th February 2024
Have you spotted one of our colourful denizens? Amorbus Alternatus.
Update on Innovation and Ideas Grant: The Hill project
Posted on 28th November 2023
By Andrew Wood, convenor, Blue Wren subcommittee, Bulletin 10/2023, December At last, some good news – on Wednesday 15 November the final contract (Approval Temporary Access over Council Land) to permit the start of work on the Innovation and Ideas Grant was signed by the City of Sydney and the Society. It will enable the […]
The Hill: HAZMAT clothing required
Posted on 31st July 2023
The Blue Wren Subcommittee is considering asking City of Sydney Council to allow the employment of an asbestos assessor to deal with contamination issues while installing wildlife monitoring devices.
The Blue Wrens Report – July 2023
Posted on 26th June 2023
The Glebe’s Hill research collaboration has hit a snag – due to contamination, the researchers must wear HAZMAT gear!
Event report: Unravelling Glebe Hill’s biodiversity secrets and potential
Posted on 29th May 2023
Learn about the Glebe Society’s collaboration with Prof. Dieter Hochuli’s Integrative Ecology group to study the biodiversity of one of Glebe’s forgotten places
News from the Blue Wrens, June 2023
Posted on 31st May 2023
Find out what the Glebe Society’s ecology arm, the Blue Wren Subcommittee, has been up to over the last month.
Glebe’s Hill and its flora and fauna
Posted on 29th April 2023
Learn more about the study of the fauna and flora of Glebe’s Hill, on Sunday 7 May. The Hill is a patch of contaminated crown land on the northern side of the Tramsheds. A City of Sydney grant to the Society will fund an investigation by biological scientists from the University of Sydney.
Unravelling the biodiversity secrets and potential of ‘The Hill’
Posted on 26th March 2023
How will the biosleuths discover the fauna and flora living on ‘The Hill’ on the northern side of the Tramsheds? Find out at a free talk on 7 May 2023.
News from the Blue Wrens
Posted on 27th February 2023
‘The Hill’ is a fenced-off area of contaminated Crown land on the northern side of the Tramsheds at Forest Lodge. The Glebe Society has successfully applied for a grant from the City of Sydney to sponsor the recording of wildlife with a view to creating an undisturbed urban nature refuge in the Johnstons Creek corridor, where plants and native wildlife are protected from disturbance.
Glebe, naturally…
Posted on 30th November 2022
33 different bird species were identified during this year’s spring bird survey in Glebe and Forest Lodge, including a tawny frogmouth, lots of lorikeets and magpies, herons, tree martins and red wattlebirds. Two brush turkeys have recently been spotted building their characteristic mounds.
News from the Blue Wren Subcommittee
Posted on 20th September 2022
Recent Bushcare, Landcare and biodiversity news, including the upcoming bird survey and recent plantings in Federal Park and at the Palmerston steps off Ferry Road.
‘The Hill’ as a future wildlife refuge: Meeting with City of Sydney
Posted on 8th September 2022
Representatives of the Glebe Society and City of Sydney met recently to inspect ‘The Hill’, a fenced-off area of contaminated land between the Tramsheds and Jubilee Park station. While it currently contains a lot of weedy trees and rubbish, it has great potential to become a flourishing urban wildlife refuge.
What and where is ‘The Hill’?
Posted on 9th August 2022
‘The Hill’ is a fenced-off area of contaminated Crown land on the northern side of the Tramsheds near the Jubilee Park light rail station. The site of a local garbage tip in the 1890s, the Glebe Society has recommended that it should become an undisturbed urban nature refuge.
News from our volunteer bushcare groups
Posted on 9th August 2022
A round-up (no pun intended) of the activities of the Glebe Society’s Bushcare Groups.
Preschoolers get up close to invertebrates in the classroom
Posted on 6th July 2022
Last year, courtesy of a grant from the Glebe Society, Explore and Develop Annandale Early Learning Centre acquired several new invertebrates. The animals were quickly adopted into the school menagerie.
The raison d’être of the Glebe Society
Posted on 9th October 2022
Reflections written in 2010 (with some factual updates since) on the social and economic conditions in Glebe in the 1960s and the factors that saw the birth of the Glebe Society. In the intervening 50 years, the changing demographics of Glebe have also played a role, arguably both positive and negative. By long term Glebe Society member and former Planning Convenor, Neil Macindoe.
Environmental news from the Blue Wren Subcommittee
Posted on 6th April 2022
The Glebe Society’s annual biodiversity lecture will this year feature Professor Dieter Hochuli talking on ‘How nature survives and thrives in urban environments, and why it matters for the future of our cities’. It is on 25 May. Also read news from the Glebe bushcare groups.
A foreshore journey with an ecological theme – Glebe Society Guided Walk
Posted on 6th April 2022
A report on a fascinating guided walk in March that focussed on the Blackwattle Bay foreshore and the ecology of the area.
Report from Glebe Public School on the outcomes of their 2021 Craney Small Grant
Posted on 7th March 2022
The Craney Small Grants Program has generously provided Glebe Public School with the opportunity to inform, educate and enact sustainable practices and programs across our school.
Pedestrian safety still at risk at new Sydney Fish Market site
Posted on 7th March 2022
Transport for NSW officials have responded to urgent concerns over pedestrian safety along Bridge Rd, next to the construction site of the New Sydney Fish Market. Transport for NSW plans to improve signage ‘within a few weeks’, and that they were currently undertaking a pedestrian safety review, which they aim to implement ‘sooner rather than later’. The results of the review will not be publicly available.
Update: proposed eco-corridor as part of the future for Bays West
Posted on 7th March 2022
A wildlife corridor is being proposed for the foreshores of our bays. The corridor, which would link to similar corridors in Glebe, Annandale, the Greenway and Callan Park, should be included in the government’s Bays West plans.
News from the Blue Wren Subcommittee
Posted on 11th June 2022
Professor Dieter Hochuli from Sydney University’s School of Life and Environmental Sciences gave the Society’s 7th Annual Biodiversity Talk in May on how nature survives and thrives in urban environments, and why it matters to us humans. Research has shown that non-native plants and weeds are not all bad. Some can provide vital floral resources for urban pollinators and great habitat for small birds. Read also about the recent activities of the local bush/landcare groups.
News from the Blue Wren Subcommittee
Posted on 11th November 2021
The main news was the celebration on October 19 of Norma Hawkins’ 99th birthday and the planting of a tree in her honour. In other news, the Council has released for comment its Draft Plans of Management for Glebe’s crown lands and Sydney Water’s naturalisation work on the Johnstons creek/canal has been completed.
Glebe’s environmental assets
Posted on 6th November 2021
Eva Ancher, who is in Year 6 at school, lives in Glebe. Read her thoughts on the our local environment.
Position vacant – environment convenor
Posted on 4th October 2021
The Glebe Society is looking for a new convenor for the Environment Subcommittee. Are you interested?
Blue Wren sighting in Glebe!
Posted on 7th September 2021
In May this year two Superb Fairywrens were spotted at Glebe Point, the first confirmed sighting since 2016
Protecting our environment – sewage pumping stations serving Glebe
Posted on 14th September 2021
Four low level sewage pumping stations serve Glebe and surrounding areas, part of a network constructed at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries in response to the outbreaks of typhoid which plagued Sydney from the 1870s to 1890s. Built at a time when small-scale utilitarian buildings were given as much careful attention as public buildings.
2021 Craney Small Grants to support biodiversity projects in local preschools and schools
Posted on 11th July 2021
Small grants awarded to SDN Preschool Glebe, Explore and Develop Preschool, Annandale and Glebe Public School. to foster biodiversity. Thanks to the late Jan Craney, former convenor of the Society’s Blue Wren Subcommittee.
What about wildlife corridors in the Bays West area?
Posted on 15th July 2021
Balmain resident and Society member Keith Stallard argues that establishing eco-corridors in the Bays West area could help with badly-needed ecological regeneration.
