Holtze Landcare Group

About Holtze Landcare Group

The Holtze Landcare area is located on Larrakia Country in the Top End of the Northern Territory. The Holtze Landcare group acknowledges Larrakia people as the traditional custodians of this land.

The site comprises five distinct interconnected biodiverse-rich zones comprising open woodlands, seasonally inundated sandsheet heath, paperbark forest, 170 magnetic termite mounds in extensive pandanus forest and seasonal wetland lagoons.

Holtze Landcare Group (the Group) is a non-profit organisation created in 2004 with 45 members from Wallaby Holtze Road and nearby communities and has grown to 56 in 2024. The Group was formed to protect, conserve, rehabilitate and maintain approximately 145 hectares (350 acres) that was previously mined for sand in 1997. In addition to past mining, the area suffered extensive commercial and domestic rubbish dumping, hooning, vandalism and weed intrusion, flora and fauna destruction.

Now, after 20 years, the seasonal inundated wetlands have regained their health and vitality evidenced by the increased biodiversity to the area. Moving forward the Group aims to promote interconnected conservation, grounded in science and culture and build climate resilient ecosystems and protect wildlife and flora for future generations, and build sustainable outreach educational opportunities.

The Group has been the custodian of the nominated conservation area for the past 20 years, under an agreement between Crown Lands (Northern Territory Government) and Litchfield Council. 

There have been several stages to the initial rehabilitation of the land:

1. Access - there was the urgent need to restrict access as 4wd’s, motorbikes, army quads (and a lost tank!) were causing extensive damage through rubbish dumping and hooning resulting in plant and soil damage, destruction of burrowing frog habitat, the introduction of weeds from dumping garden waste, and fires being started.

2. Establishment of programs - several environmental management programs initiated such as, weed mapping and the eradication of declared Class A weeds; Mimosa pigra, and Andropogan gayanus, (ongoing) plus the removal of faunal species, Bubalus bubalis (Water Buffalo), Sus scrofa (Feral Pig) and the ongoing removal of Bufo marinus (Cane Toads).

3. Balance, growth, monitoring - The Group now has fairly good control over intrusive vehicles and the dumping of commercial rubbish with the erection of signage and placement of gates and government erected bollards which took some years as these were constantly being destroyed. Some of the monitoring and capacity building programs undertaken by the Group include:

• Numerous fauna (amphibian, birds and insect) and flora surveys
• Identifying threatened and vulnerable species
• Seasonal water quality monitoring 
• Weed control and eradication
• Regular meetings, field days, fire management and prevention 
• Promoting the educational value with schools, school children and community groups

Despite good progress over the years, the main issues the Group continues to be concerned with and managing include: 

• The inappropriate use and ripping up of vegetation by quad bikes, motor bikes, 4WDs 
• Disturbance of wildlife with very low flying army helicopters who illegally fly below the 13th parallel
• The dumping of commercial and domestic rubbish
• Storm water run-off from the Yarrawonga industrial area including Bunnings, mechanics and fertilizer business
• Land clearing and storm water run-off from the Holtze Hospital site and proposed new Holtze development
• The enormous land clearing and encroachment of urban development from the Holtze urbanisation
• The illegal lighting of fires, increased traffic on Tulagi Road to Roberson Barracks with littering and some oil pollution and finally 
• The potential fragmentation of natural bush areas supporting and maintaining the Holtze Landcare area including the potential clearing of the corridor to Kings creek. 

The Group has worked very hard in managing these threats to date.

The Holtze Landcare area is a beautiful and vitally important and biodiverse hotspot. Within the zones, it contains an endemic colony of rare magnetic termite mounds (the closest to Darwin) as well as rare, vulnerable and threatened flora and fauna species such as Utricularias, Typhoniums, and Howard River Toadlet, that come with sand sheet heath and wetland ecosystems.

The unique partnering of the five significant ecological zones means that it is highly useful for educational and research purposes but it is under significant threat because of its close proximity to urbanization and development. In addition, there is high risk of lack of understanding of its intrinsic rich biodiversity value and how this relates to the future well being of greater eco systems, the quality of water feeding the underground aquifers and into  Darwin Harbour.

The area has been used for research, education and field work by the NT Native Plant Society, The NT Field Naturalists, Haileybury Rendall School (formally Kormilda College), Milkwood Steiner School, Dr. Peter Jacklyn Tropical SavannasnCRC and  CSIRO studying termites and Dr Steve Reynolds the Howard Springs Toadlet. It cannot be underestimated the value of this  combined collection of unique ecosystems with its rich biodiversity  within the five inter connected and differing communities. 

The site has been maintained, protected and undergone an extremely successful transformation over the last 20 years and this work is still continuing.