The Habitat Brisbane program is Brisbane City Council's community bushcare volunteer program. It supports over 160 Habitat Brisbane groups whose hands-on conservation efforts protect and enhance habitat and biodiversity in bushland, parks, wetlands and waterways across Brisbane.

Habitat Brisbane groups are run by dedicated volunteers who are committed to keeping Brisbane clean, green and sustainable. Groups work in partnership with Council and receive advice and support from Council's Habitat Brisbane officers.

Whatever your skill level and motivation, joining your local Habitat Brisbane group is a great way to meet new people, develop new skills, connect to nature, be active and healthy, and make a difference to your local environment.

Habitat Brisbane groups undertake a variety of activities including:

  • weed removal
  • revegetating with locally native plants
  • mulching
  • citizen science projects
  • conducting flora and fauna surveys
  • drawing people together to build community partnerships and friendships
  • hosting community planting days and open days.

Join a Habitat Brisbane group

Join a Habitat Brisbane group to make a difference to your local environment. 

Find your local group in the list below. For more information, phone Council on 07 3403 8888 or email our Habitat Brisbane team.

Search by suburb

Suburbs are listed alphabetically in letter groupings.

Note: only suburbs with Habitat Brisbane groups are included in the dropdown lists. If you can't find your suburb, look for surrounding suburbs.

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Habitat Brisbane training resources

Watch our Habitat Brisbane training videos on Council's YouTube channel.

Habitat Brisbane volunteer videos

Access all Habitat Brisbane videos on Council's YouTube channel under our Habitat Brisbane playlist

Volunteer, Stephanie Ford - Arnwood Place Bushcare Group, Annerley

Video transcript

>>STEPHANIE FORD: I've been bushcare volunteering here at Arnwood Place, and I am probably most proud that we still have small birds on the site.

What inspired me to become involved with bushcare was walking around this site, quite a few times with my husband and we were birdwatchers and we'd come down and we would try to see what birds we could see closest to our home.

It's one thing to see birds in a national park, but if you go to the piece of bush nearest to your home and try to see what the best thing, the best bird you can see there, um that's quite interesting.

But there are certainly moments that are like milestones...like this little area here for example used to be all covered in glycine and we cleared all that weed and planted natives and now they are getting a good height on them.

It's just beautiful as well to have the creek in the background while you are working. Ducks are there, and moorhens and there are a lot of turtles in this creek, particularly in summer you notice them.

Also, when we are working, we plant a lot of vegetation on the banks to try and improve water quality and we spend a bit of time removing garbage from the banks as well. So every time I see a little native plant that is coming up by itself and I free it up and give it some space to grow, um I know I'm making a difference and that is just so satisfying.

[end screen] Find out how to get involved by searching 'habitat' at brisbane.qld.gov.au.

Volunteer, Mike Fox - Fox Gully Bushcare Group, Mount Gravatt
 

Video transcript

>> MIKE FOX: I started this group with the support of Habitat Brisbane back in 2006 in the middle of the drought.

And it's just a place where I find it's peaceful.

The other thing I love doing is just finding what's living here.

I've identified 52 bird species on the mountain, 48 butterfly species, 11 solitary native bee species.

So there are lots of things...I'm always finding something new...always learning something new.

And I regenerate my energy by just coming out in the bush.

When we came walking, we'd always come around here.

So you can look out to Stradbroke Island, Mount Petrie, Mount Cotton.

I can now come and sit at Jude's favourite spot, and that's part of the reason I keep doing this.

She actively supported me in this for years. And...so I keep it up.

[end screen] Find out how to get involved by searching 'habitat' at brisbane.qld.gov.au.

Habitat tripods with Mike Fox - Fox Gully Bushcare Group, Mt Gravatt

Video transcript

>> MIKE FOX:  One of the things we have been doing is building habitat tripods. 

Just using some of the fallen timber and making a tripod. 

And then growing something like this dusky coral pea and shrubs up around it. 

The main logic behind this, and why we started doing this, is providing habitat for fairy-wrens. 

As we clean up lantana and clear some of the scrubby, untidy bush, we are getting rid of safe places for fairy-wrens. 

So the thinking is to create these alternative spaces. 

The other thing this does is also as we get more and more species growing up through it and around it, we get more insects.  

And insects are what the fairy-wrens want to eat. 

So, we are actually trying to regenerate the forest. 

[end screen] Find out how to get involved by searching ‘habitat’ at brisbane.qld.gov.au. 

Koala drinking stations with Mike Fox - Fox Gully Bushcare Group, Mt Gravatt

Video transcript

>> MIKE FOX: So at the moment we’ve got a koala drinker project underway to see if providing water for koalas will make a difference on the mountain.  

This photo came in last night from the cameras that monitor it, and there is a koala climbing up the tree past the drinker.  

So we have got kolas using the drinkers, brush-tailed possums using the drinkers, brush-tails with babies, koalas with babies, friarbirds, king parrots, fairy-wrens, you name it.  

Everyone is using those water sources.  

So it’s really…now we are looking at what we can do to make it long term.  

Sort of 10 years, 20 years. 

[end screen] Find out how to get involved by searching ‘habitat’ at brisbane.qld.gov.au. 

Volunteer, Nat Costanzo - Wittonga Park Bushcare Group, The Gap

Video transcript

>> NAT COSTANZO: I actually took on this Habitat Brisbane group with two of my really close girlfriends.

We did it as a way to connect with people in the community, rather than revegetation.

So our focus has always been on having fun.

And when we do our planning sessions once a month, it's usually done you know over dinner and a wine, or lunch and a wine, and so it's a really nice way for us to catch up while doing something meaningful.

I'm most proud that we've provided an experience that people come back to.

So every working bee about 10-20 people come and help out and most of them are return visits and so we have kind of built a bit of a community.

We all know each other and it's really rewarding because you just do a little bit.

Like what we've done today is weed the bank behind me and that was all panic grass and so we've removed that and now you can see that everyone is just planting lomandras.

So you just do a little tiny bit at a time and it feels really good to help wildlife come back to this beautiful spot.

And it is a bit selfish because I walk past here every day.

So being able to see the work that we are doing, and watch the plants grow...I feel like they are my little babies. It is really nice.

[end screen] Find out how to get involved by searching 'habitat' at brisbane.qld.gov.au.

30 years of Habitat Brisbane - Greenbank Association, Grange
 

Video transcript

[Music]

>>DAVID: Hi, my name is David Walters. I'm a volunteer with the Greenbrook Association.

So the founder of this group was a man called Frank Box who commenced work here back in late 1980.

He worked here as head of the North Brisbane Forest League for the first ten years of the park's life and then subsequently it changed to The Greenbrook Association in 1989.

His work has been astonishing. The energy he put in for those first two decades of work in this park here is unlike anything I have seen. His endless energy and devotion to getting the very best results for this place was just exemplary.

So Frank Box started this group, moved away from here in 2010 and it needed three men to take over when he left. So Greg Smith, Greg Church who unfortunately isn't here and myself took over as joint group leaders of the group.

>>GREG S: I have lived here for 46 years and back on to the Grange Forest Park. And how I started here, I have always liked nature. That's one of the reasons I bought the home we're in. I walked to the back of the house and I said "where do we sign?". I just love this bushland. It's my backyard.

>> DAVID: The Greenbrook Association is extraordinarily well documented. It's also one of the longest groups that has been around in Brisbane.

One of the things that we did, was publish a local bush news which went to 3000 people and it was published every quarter and for 10 years it was delivered here locally, supported by local business.

There are press clippings here going back from 1980 and you can see the group had good conduit to the local press. We had articles regularly in the local papers dealing with the work we were doing here. All of these are on our website.

>> GREG S: For volunteers, I think you couldn't have a better outlook. If you like nature and a little bit of light work, there is not a lot of work, we have a smoko in the middle of our working bee.

>> DAVID: So I guess what you have to keep in mind when you walk through here is that this was all grassland. This was all grassland. When we began work in here it was referred to as 'derelict land' and it didn't look like this. There was a lot of shrubs, not a lot of big trees and a lot of weed.

>> GREG S: This was just bare ground 35, 40 years ago. This tree, would you believe, is only about that age, 35 years possibly. And all the large trees in this area, as you enter into the park. It has been quite phenomenal growth. But surprisingly, trees that are 30 or 35 years old, do look like they have been there for centuries, and this is a good example.

[Music]

>> DAVID: I don't think I can choose a moment, however, one of the most rewarding parts about this has been the process. So having worked here for 35 years now and watched the astonishing changes that we have managed to engender through the work we have done in her, and what a difference it has made to the local area.

[Music]

30 years of Habitat Brisbane - Benelong Bushcare Group, Kedron

Video transcript

My name is Rob Lucas. I am the team leader of the Benelong Bushcare Group.

Benelong was formed in 1990 by local residents who wanted to protect and conserve a small fragmented part of bushland in Kedron.

As a child growing up on a farm, I was always passionate about nature and its conservation.

Benelong has given me the opportunity to follow that passion and contribute to my local community.

Doing local bushcare is a great opportunity to get together with friends. It's very good for your personal wellbeing, especially your physical and mental health. It's fantastic, getting exercise in amongst nature.

At Benelong, we do organic bushcare. We don't use chemicals. All the weeds we remove manually. We feel like that's good for the local wildlife and for the plants.

In the past 30 years, there would have been hundreds of people who volunteered in this area and hopefully they come back and see the fruits of their labour.

30 years of Habitat Brisbane - Teneriffe Bushcare Group, Teneriffe

Video transcript

Hi, I am Ginny and I am one of the leaders of this group, the Teneriffe Bushcare Group...which has been going for 30 years ever since Habitat Brisbane was set up.

The founding members were Rodney Chambers and Sandra Griffith, and Rodney looked after the group for 26 years, until he retired and moved away from the hill.

Sandra worked for a couple more years, but she has retired from the group too, but they put in a magnificent effort, and a lot of people in Habitat Brisbane would know them.

I joined the group because I came for a walk here with my friend Lesley, who was visiting from Sydney, and we walked down there, and there were three of them.

There was Paul and Rodney and one other guy on the corner down by the Scout Hut gardening away, and so I asked them what they were doing, and they took my details and that's when I joined the group.

So it must be coming up for 10 years ago, something like that.

But I have been helping to run the group for the last 6 years.

It is not just the planting and keeping this lovely park going, but it is mixing with the community and the social mixing. It is lovely to meet with people once a month and do something worthwhile together.

30 years of Habitat Brisbane - Teneriffe Bushcare Group, Teneriffe

Video transcript

>> ANNEMARIE WHITE: When I moved to New Farm 18 years ago, it was a big metropolis. I had moved from the country and I had discovered this oasis. And so every week, almost in the past 18 years, I come to the forest for some serenity. In Japan, they call it 'forest bathing'. Here I just call it 'Aussie bush serenity'. And being able to sit on my log, and just take in the peace, listen to the birds...it really refreshes me.

[Music]

But instead of just enjoying the bush, I thought maybe I could help 'keep' the bush. And I saw a sign that advertised they needed helpers, so I signed up, and now I come every month and plant, weed, or regenerate.

[Music]

Every time I come, I visit my little babies...just to make sure they are still going okay.

[Music]

You would never believe that we are in the middle of the city, here in this oasis.

30 years of Habitat Brisbane - Melaleuca Environmental Park Bushcare Group, Lota

Video transcript

>> DIANNE: Melaleuca Park Bushcare Group was formed in 1988 to replant a very degraded piece of land which is formerly a nightsoil tip. We wanted to create a sustainable wildlife habitat and make a pleasant place for locals to take nature walks and observe the flora and fauna. Three years later, the Habitat Brisbane program began and we became part of that scheme.

[Music]

During the 25 years, I was involved with the group, we planted many thousands of native trees, shrubs, and grasses with the assistance of local school children, Scouts, Rotary, the unemployed etc.

[Music]

We held annual Australia Day barbecue breakfasts, inviting locals to join us on the day. These were happy times which helped us to showcase our achievements by taking large groups of people on tours of the park.

A number of bird nesting boxes were installed in various locations, but we discovered that there were Squirrel Gliders in the park who loved the nesting boxes more than the birds. Some were even taken over by native bees. We also installed bat boxes and were thrilled to see them occupied almost immediately by Gould's wattled microbats.

It is very satisfying to know that you can make a real difference in the preservation and restoration of wildlife habitat. It is a great way to do something worthwhile in your local area.

Last updated: 28 September 2022

Brisbane City Council acknowledges this Country and its Traditional Custodians. We pay our respects to the Elders, those who have passed into the dreaming; those here today; those of tomorrow.