Western Australia’s City of Armadale is helping to protect its native bushland with the installation of 23 Dieback Hygiene Stations in major local reserves.
Located 30 minutes southeast of the Perth CBD, the City of Armadale boasts a modern city centre nestled among scenic parks, undulating hills and picturesque valleys.
The new Dieback Hygiene Stations comprise heavy bristled brushes and are prominently signed. They urge walkers to clean the soil off their shoes when entering a dieback free or dieback unknown, area.
Dieback, or Phytophthora cinnamomi, is a devastating soil and water borne pathogen, which invades the roots of plants and eventually kills them. In sloping areas dieback spreads quickly in surface and subsurface water flows. However, it is human activity that causes the most significant, rapid and widespread distribution of the pathogen.
People can spread dieback through mud on footwear or vehicles, shifting infected soil or gravel, grading roads or moving infected plant material.
Twenty-three Dieback Hygiene Stations have now been installed in three regionally significant areas of local bushland in the Darling Range Regional Park. The stations have been placed where paths intersect dieback fronts. In combination with risk area signage, the stations help educate the public about the presence and effects of dieback and minimise the further spread of the disease through soil movement. Walkers can also spray the bottom of their shoes with methylated spirits to kill the dieback pathogen in areas where there are no hygiene stations.
Installation of the stations was funded by the Western Australian Government, through the Outer Metropolitan Community Fund.
For further information contact Council’s Environment Officer, Paula Haro, on (08) 9399 0111.
