More native plants needed says Cowra Climate Smart Conference speaker

This is the message from Greening Australia’s lead scientist, Dr Paul Gibson-Roy, who was a keynote speaker at the Cowra Climate Smart Conference this week. 

The conference, which was held over two days, saw leading figures from fields such as agriculture, conservation, government policy and science come to Cowra to discuss the issues surrounding climate. 

Dr Gibson-Roy said his talk would be about the importance of integrating more native plants and flowers into places like Cowra. 

“I’m talking about how we can try and integrate native plants back into our rural and urban landscapes,” he said. 

“When you look around at most places I think we don’t even recognise just how little there actually is.”

He said Greening Australia have already commenced planting more native flora in areas such as Sydney and across Victoria. 

“I’ve been working for many years looking at how we can push back native communities,” Dr Gibson-Roy said. 

“For example, in places like Cowra, there would have once been widespread native wildflowers, lots of native grasses, so often people focus on the trees but really trying to put back all those communities.

“So on a farm, you might be able to put back native grasses for pastures, wildflowers for pollinators.”

He said it’s been fascinating to hear from the other speakers about their issues. 

“Very enjoyable, it’s always a great opportunity here to hear people talking about their special interest, it’s a lot of fun.”

The conference wrapped up in Cowra on Thursday.