Restoring Catchment and Community Resilience is a project with Amazon Web Services to enhance the health and resilience of important parts of the Greater Sydney Water Catchment in the Wollondilly Shire. The two-year project is working to restore nature in Picton, Buxton and Thirlmere to improve water yield and quality, boost biodiversity and enhance the resilience of local communities to climate change. These areas that were badly impacted by the Black Summer bushfires.

Through the project, GER’s on-ground partner Greater Sydney Landcare is engaging local landholders, community groups and local government to:

• Plant native vegetation to build the resilience of catchment lands and improve, expand and reconnect important habitats for local wildlife. These include glossy black-cockatoos, koalas, platypus and grey-headed flying foxes.
• Manage key threats that suppress natural regeneration and reduce water quality and output, such as weeds, erosion and excess sediment.
• Build the capacity and resilience of landholders through workshops, planting days and other events.
• Establish new Landcare groups to ensure that the benefits of the effort extend far beyond the life of the project.
• Create a community wildlife trail.

Once the project is completed, it is expected to deliver an additional 32 million litres of water each year to the Sydney catchment.