After the 2019‑2020 fires, Lithgow Environment Group heard the cry from their local community: 'How can we help nature recover?' Lithgow Environment Group saw the need to help nature get back on its feet.

One project that was paramount was to assist with the installation of habitat replacement nesting tubes for the vulnerable listed Eastern Pygmy Possum. LEG visited The Lithgow Womens Shed to solicit their assistance in making the nest tubes. The tubes are now ready to be placed out in the natural areas of Lithgow.

The project will involve a local fauna ecologist, Andrew Lothian from Biodiversity Monitoring Services, who will mark out suitable locations for the tubes, and, with the ongoing help of volunteers, 30 nest tubes will be placed and monitored at their coordinates.

This project is not only about helping nature, but nurturing our younger generation, with education and information about the local natural area.

LEG is seeking like-minded community members who have an interest in natural habitats, or who are currently doing a degree and would like to be part of a future, ongoing program to install nesting tubes for Eastern Pygmy Possums.

The planned area for the project is the headwaters of the Coxs River - a peatland that supports ancient montane bogs and fens. This is a Threatened Ecological Community (TEC) and resides inside the Long Swamp System of Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area (aka Ben Bullen State Forest).

Doing Something For Eastern Pygmy Possums is an article by Tracie McMahon that more fully describes this project.

Here's Julie Favell's article Lithgow after the fire - the healing journey continues. It was in the May 2024 edition of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society's Hut News newsletter.

We're in the process of arranging inspections of these tubes.

If you might be interested in participating in such a project, please contact Lithgow Environment Group.