Michael Thomas says his workmates have given him a new job title: 'Danger Ranger', or 'Disaster Ranger'.
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Michael works for National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Manning Area, and hasn't stopped working on recovering the environment from disaster since the 2019 bushfires devastated the region.
Sixteen months into working on the damages caused by the fires, his work was interrupted by the March 2021 floods, when he had to switch focus.
"Since the fires, all of my time has been working on recovery. I haven't been able to do any of my ranger roles or anything other than disaster stuff," Michael said.
"I'm still dealing with some minor fire stuff, because the flood hit while I was still dealing with those issues, so it had to be put on the back burner a bit while we dealt with the immediacy of repairs to a lot of our estate after the flood."
And, he says, the two disasters have caused so much work he will officially continue the disaster recovery work until June 2023.
One could argue that he was a 'disaster ranger' before the fires, as the drought was taking a huge toll on the environment, and in particular Wingham Brush Nature Reserve, a rare remnant of endangered subtropical lowland rainforest.
Wingham Brush and Coocumbac Island in the Manning River, another small remnant of the same endangered rainforest type, are under Michael's care. The two sites suffered damage from the flood event earlier this year.
"A lot of the casuarina forest got knocked over," Michael said. "It was pretty well torn out by root balls or snapped completely as the flow of water went through and obstacles came down and hit trees."
Once the Brush was cleared for hazmat the cleanup began, with all kinds of items, including drums, mattresses and beds, deposited in the Brush from the flood.
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Michael said that, surprisingly, the boardwalk through the Brush was largely undamaged, as NPWS had spent a lot of money upgrading the boardwalk with fibermesh which "held it in good stead".
"It just went straight over the top. That minimised impact for us hugely but it still had some impact, particularly around the interps (information signage) around the entrance to the reserve at Farquhar Street."
A new 'interp shelter' at the Farquhar Street entrance has been built, and all that remains is for new interps to be installed, and a new fence bordering on Wingham Brush Public School.
"Wingham Brush was interesting, because afterwards you could through the reserve and there were areas that were stripped back and material taken away, but others where it accumulated up to a metre of new soil," Michael said.
"So obviously there's going to be a potential of (weeds) popping out so that something that is going to be an ongoing task for the bush regenerators."
We need to make sure none of those nasties come back and start invading, especially the core areas, the areas weve recently planted because were trying to get them up to a canopy stage.
- NPWS ranger Michael Thomas
The bush regenerators will also have a long job ahead of them on Coocumbac Island, which was damaged quite extensively. However, the majority of the debris remaining on Coocumbac is hay - around 50 bales of it.
"There's been a lot of discussion about how we actually remove those. Obviously it's a bit difficult to drag them through the bush, because you're affecting a rainforest type, which is threatened ecological community, so we don't want to be doing that," Michael said.
The effects of the flood will be felt on both sites for quite a long while yet.
"There's going to be months, if not years, of monitoring for weeds to pop out, because every time we get a flush we get weeds that come from the upper reaches all the way through and they deposit into those areas where they've always deposited."
And as for being the Danger Ranger, Michael laughs and says it is a job title that might not go away.
"Maybe that's a status of the changing environment. We've got to be prepared that this is going to be a continuation of whatever the next disaster may be. I might have to pop into that as well," he said.
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