The mending ground
The work of putting it back
A map of remnant bush is a map of what survived. This is the other half — the human work of repair, keyed to the same coast-to-range gradient. Every reserve bought back, every hillside replanted, every rope bridge slung over a highway for a possum. North of the Maroochy the same work is recorded differently: Noosa Shire keeps its bushland reserves zone by zone, logs the weed control done inside them, and grades its creeks reach by reach for what recovery would take. Back on the map, switch to Mending ground to see it drawn on the ground; here is who is doing it, and how to join in.
The invisible work
Much of the habitat on this coast is not in any reserve at all: it is on private land, kept by landholders who volunteered for it. It can never be a set of dots on a map, and it shouldn't be. Here it is as a single, honest number — reported, as the program reports it, across the whole of South East Queensland.
Land for Wildlife SEQ, November 2022. South East Queensland (whole LfW SEQ program, 11 member councils incl. Sunshine Coast & Noosa) — NOT a Sunshine-Coast-only figure
Find your people
14 real Landcare, bushcare, coastcare, catchment and community-nursery groups across the coast — each verified against its own website. Coordinates are public town centres only; no private site is shown.
- Barung Landcare landcare
Maleny
Blackall Range landcare group running a large community native nursery, revegetation projects and a Gardens for Wildlife scheme across the Maleny-Landsborough hinterland.
Get involved → - Noosa & District Landcare landcare
Pomona
Noosa hinterland landcare group running three native nurseries (including the Pomona HinterHub), koala-corridor restoration and catchment revegetation.
Get involved → - ECOllaboration catchment
Yandina
Environmental not-for-profit (formerly Maroochy Waterwatch) running Queensland's longest water-quality monitoring program, River Patrol and Maroochy catchment restoration.
Get involved → - Noosa Integrated Catchment Association (NICA) catchment
Tewantin
Coordinates natural-resource management across the Noosa River catchment, auspicing local bushcare groups, water-quality testing and shorebird monitoring.
Get involved → - Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee (MRCCC) catchment
Gympie
Integrated catchment management body for the Mary River basin, running water-quality monitoring, habitat work and the Find a Frog in February citizen-science program.
Get involved → - Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland — Sunshine Coast & Hinterland Branch citizen-science
Caloundra
Community wildlife branch running Faunawatch fauna-monitoring outings, wildflower walks and hands-on weeding and planting at coastal conservation reserves.
Get involved → - Sunshine Coast Environment Council (SCEC) advocacy
Nambour
The region's peak environment body since 1980, an independent voice for nature connecting more than 50 member groups across the Sunshine Coast.
Get involved → - Noosa Parks Association advocacy
Noosa Heads
Queensland's oldest community conservation group (1962), staffing the Noosa National Park information centre and running a land fund and volunteer interest groups.
Get involved → - Coolum & North Shore Coast Care coastcare
Coolum Beach
Volunteer dune and coastal-bush regeneration from Stumers Creek to the Maroochy River, with a native nursery, beach-litter surveys and turtle monitoring.
Get involved → - Coolum Community Native Nursery nursery
Yaroomba
Not-for-profit community nursery growing and supplying local-provenance native plants to support Sunshine Coast biodiversity and revegetation.
Get involved → - Bribie Island Environmental Protection Association (BIEPA) bushcare
Bribie Island (Bellara)
Bribie Island community group protecting Pumicestone Passage and island habitats through weed and marine-debris removal, shorebird work and BioBlitz citizen science.
Get involved → - Mooloolah River Landcare landcare
Glenview
Landcare group engaging the community and volunteers through activities and events, and running a native-plant nursery, a biocontrol facility and catchment-care programs for the Mooloolah River catchment.
Get involved → - Cooloola Coastcare coastcare
Rainbow Beach
Coastal-management volunteers on the Cooloola coast (Rainbow Beach, Tin Can Bay, Cooloola Cove) running dune rehabilitation, wildflower walks, turtle and water monitoring.
Get involved → - Currimundi Catchment Care Group catchment
Currimundi
Volunteers caring for the Currimundi Lake and Creek catchment through bank stabilisation, water-quality monitoring, waterway clean-ups and native planting.
Get involved →
Join a program
Currently-running citizen-science projects anyone can join — the living engine that keeps the map honest.
- TurtleCare Sunshine Coast
Trained volunteers monitor and protect nesting loggerhead and green turtles and their hatchlings along Sunshine Coast beaches from Buddina to North Bribie Island.
How to take part → - Find a Frog in February
Each February, photograph or record calling frogs near ponds and creeks across the Mary, Mooloolah, Maroochy and Noosa catchments and submit them (via iNaturalist, FrogID or a record sheet) to the MRCCC.
How to take part → - Sunshine Coast Marine BioBlitz
Photograph marine and coastal species from Pumicestone Passage to Coolum during the annual bioblitz and upload them to iNaturalist to record the Biosphere's marine life.
How to take part → - NatureWatch Sunshine Coast — Nest Box Monitoring
Volunteers check the hundreds of nest boxes installed across council environment reserves, recording which birds, bats and marsupials are using these artificial hollows.
How to take part → - Dugong Diaries (BIEPA)
Log dugong sightings in Pumicestone Passage; audited 'gold standard' observations feed the State WildNet database to help protect dugongs and their seagrass habitat.
How to take part → - WildWatch Noosa
Report koala and other wildlife sightings across Noosa Shire through the WildWatch Noosa app; data flows to the State database to guide habitat and planning decisions.
How to take part →
See the living map layer on the map? Add your own sighting to iNaturalist →
Sources, licences & how this map was made
We acknowledge the Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi) people as the Traditional Owners and continuing custodians of this Country, recognised in the Federal Court of Australia's 2024 native title determination. No cultural, ranger or custodial sites are plotted on this map.
Every layer is stripped to a published attribute whitelist. No owner/ratepayer/address/cadastre/Lot-Plan/contact field is present in any file, and the whitelisted fields are scrubbed at the value level too: a name field is not safe just because it is called a name field. Nature Refuge = boundary only. Land for Wildlife = aggregate stat only. Obscured/threatened species coordinates are excluded entirely.
| Layer | Source | Licence | Features | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Environment Levy Purchased Properties | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 117 | 2026-07-13 |
| Revegetation Offset Areas | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 223 | 2026-07-13 |
| Fauna Crossings | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 79 | 2026-07-13 |
| Fauna Poles | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 90 | 2026-07-13 |
| Artificial Habitat | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 830 | 2026-07-13 |
| Bushland Reserve | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 279 | 2026-07-13 |
| Conservation Reserve | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 20 | 2026-07-13 |
| Planned Burn Program | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 52 | 2026-07-13 |
| Scheduled Ecological Restoration Zones | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 8 | 2026-07-13 |
| UNESCO Biosphere Areas | geopublic.scc.qld.gov.au | CC BY 3.0 AU | 7 | 2026-07-13 |
| Environment & Liveability Strategy: Nature Refuge (boundary only) | services-ap1.arcgis.com | CC BY 3.0 AU | 90 | 2026-07-13 |
| Environment & Liveability Strategy: Core Habitat | services-ap1.arcgis.com | CC BY 3.0 AU | 226 | 2026-07-13 |
| Openspace (natural-area subset: Environmental Reserve, Beach & Dunal, Natural Amenity Reserve, Riparian Tract) | services7.arcgis.com | © Noosa Shire Council, republished with permission (council GIS, Aug 2026) | 162 | 2026-07-13 |
| Bushland Reserve Management Zones (restoration approach recorded for 338 of 751 zones) | services7.arcgis.com | © Noosa Shire Council, republished with permission (council GIS, Aug 2026) | 751 | 2026-08-06 |
| Bush Renewal weed-control operations (2021–2026) | services7.arcgis.com | © Noosa Shire Council, republished with permission (council GIS, Aug 2026) | 507 | 2026-08-06 |
| Waterway condition & recovery priority (133 assessed reaches of 9,226 mapped) | services7.arcgis.com | © Noosa Shire Council, republished with permission (council GIS, Aug 2026) | 133 | 2026-08-06 |
Excluded on purpose: Glossy Black-Cockatoo non-commercial dataset (licence excludes republication); Land Restoration Fund register (no coordinates); Noosa Bushland Reserve service (MyMapService) — 151 of its 180 reserves are already in the Openspace layer above; the 29 it adds belong in a refresh of that file, not a second layer; Noosa Vegetation Point Survey — 222 points surveyed in 2020, with uncontrolled vocabulary in condition, canopy and geology. Layer dates in the table above; newest pull 2026-08-06. Static figure labelled "as at July 2026".