WHILE Friends of Success Hill Reserve, in partnership with the Town of Bassendean, welcomes $11,382 in funding from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development’s (DPIRD) community stewardship grants, the group says more resources are needed to manage veldt grass.

Friends of Success Hill Reserve coordinator Jane Bremmer said they applied for 200 hours of weed control, but the grant only awarded 42 hours, placing more emphasis on revegetation.

“Revegetation is as equally as important as weed removal,” Ms Bremmer said.

“The most important thing we’re trying to achieve at Success Hill Reserve is to increase the canopy as significant mature and cultural trees are dying in the reserve, but the veldt grass is a big consumer of water and energy, so finding the spaces for the trees and propagating them and keeping them alive is undermined by the veldt grass.

“It is also highly flammable and outcompetes native vegetation.”

Ms Bremmer said they applied for a lot of hours of weed removal because the friends group, in consultation with the Traditional Owners of the land, are opposed to using chemicals to manage veldt grass because of cultural and efficiency issues.

“The standard method used to treat veldt grass is Fusilade Forte, but we are opposed to this being used because it results in contamination of the environment,” she said.

“Veldt grass is like a home for seeds – you can spray it and that will dry it and kill it for a while, but the dead body of that weed becomes a source of germination, so it sits there in the environment dormant.

“The next rains come and all those seeds germinate and then suddenly the dead clump of veldt grass you had turns into a nest of new weeds.

“If you cut it, the same thing happens, so that’s why we chose to, where we can, dig it out.

“Our experience where we have hand removed the veldt grass, showed us that reinfestation has dramatically lowered. It is labour intensive but the long-term impacts are worth it.”

In response to the funding allocated, a DPIRD spokesperson said the grants program is highly competitive.

“In the 2025 grants round, an independent panel of assessors concluded while the Friends of Success Hill application was valuable, there were insufficient funds for the full project and recommended supporting the revegetation component to deliver higher value natural resource management outcomes,” the spokesperson said.

Ms Bremmer said regardless of the funding the Friends of Success Hill  group will continue to work hard at the reserve.

“The areas that have been allocated under this grant will continue to be hand-weeded, re-vegetated, and hand-watered throughout summer,” she said.

“The town also allocates some of that funding to an environmental consultant that comes and does the weed control, and currently, they’re using the Aboriginal Land Care, which is doing a fantastic job with the weeds.

“We’re going to keep going and we hope DPIRD and the state government come on board in the future and actually invest in weed control rather than just revegetation.”

Success Hill Reserve is a registered Aboriginal site within the Town of Bassendean and is home to several native fauna species such as black cockatoos and quendas.

“I don’t think people in this area realise how special and important Success Hill Reserve is to the Traditional Owners in WA and to the wider community,” she said.

“It has a really rich biodiversity along the steep embankment that adjoins the river as it links up to all these other significant ecological sites and it has freshwater streams that run through, which are very sacred to the Traditional Owners.”

“This funding grant is really a good sign to our group that the state government is waking up to how precious and important this area is and I’ve heard that we’ll be involved in future funding projects, so we really welcome this.”