Leading up to the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires, Moruya-based Landscape Architect, Edwina Robinson  watched helplessly as rainforest plants shrivelled and died. Then the inferno devastated the Eurobodalla region, burning 271,000 hectares, killing people, wildlife, and destroying homes. The COVID onset shifted the focus from climate change to the  global health crisis.

Over 2020-22, Robinson established three community microforests in Canberra.  After the fires and pandemic, she discovered threatened Dry Rainforest existed along rural creeklines Moruya with just 100 hectares remaining. 

With Moruya TAFE horticulturalist, Wendy Jones and a volunteer team they visited two Moruya properties to survey remnant vegetation.  

Dry Rainforests are dominated by Port Jackson Fig (Ficus rubignosa) and Grey Myrtle (Backhousia myrtifolia) with a rich understory of ferns and orchids.

This Dry Rainforest was ideal for replication using the Miyawaki method, providing habitat for endangered birds like the Powerful Owl. Rainforest plants are ‘irrigated’ by sub-surface water harvesting trenches.  Most of the plants were grown by Jones and her students and Eurobodalla Shire Council donated 200 plants for the pollinator patch. 

The community partnered with St Johns Anglican Church to create the first ever Miyawaki inspired forest in the Eurobodalla. 

Read more:

• Moruya micro-forest will be an urban oasis funded by and built for the community

• Micro-forest inspired by rare rainforest pockets