2007 Opening of Visitor Center

The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust was able to conduct a formal opening of the North Head Sanctuary on 1st June, 2007.

John Moriarty gave an Aboriginal Acknowledgment of Ancestors. The Hon Tony Abbott, MP, and Geoff Bailey (CEO of SHFT) gave speeches.

The North Head Sanctuary is now open 10am to 4.00pm daily. There are volunteers in the visitor's centre to give information about the Sanctuary and there are walking tracks to explore.

You can download a guide from www.harbourtrust.gov.au.

2008 Nursery approved
North Head Sanctuary Foundation applied to use the truck washing bays and adjacent shed for a community nursery propagating North Head flora species for use in bush regeneration areas within the Sanctuary and in nearby places on North Head.

The front section of the shed is for a community education centre featuring information about Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub. During December, volunteers helped to prepare for construction of the nursery.

2008 North Head Sanctuary Foundation receives two grants
One grant is from the Threatened Species Network and the other is from Coastcare. These grants will help fund the construction of the Nursery, the purchase of necessary equipment, the setup of the Education Centre, the formation of a plant database, the production of educational materials and the operation of workshops.

2009 January - Education area ready for visitors
Volunteers cleaned and painted the floor of the education area and set up the furniture and initial displays. The education area was ready for visitors and volunteers began staffing the centre in the weekends. Volunteers sanded and painted the wooden sections for the construction of the Nursery.

2009 April - Nursery ready for plants
The first Nursery Bay was completed, benches installed and seeds planted.

2009 June - First seedlings planted out
The first seedlings from the Nursery were planted in the grounds of the former School of Artillery in consultation with staff of Sydney Harbour Federation Trust.

2009 August - Official opening of Nursery
An official function was held to celebrate the opening of the Nursery. The local Member of Parliament, the mayors of four local councils and senior staff of Sydney Harbour Federation Trust attended.

2009 November - Second Bay of Nursery completed
Volunteers helped to complete the second bay of the Nursery. The second bay is designed to be a "hardening up" area for seedlings before they are ready to be planted out. During the year more than 12 benches were built by volunteers to support the trays of plants. Planting out continued as seedlings matured.

2011 December - official opening of the new Education Centre venue
Sydney Harbour Federation Trust gave permission during 2011 for North Head Sanctuary Foundation to move the Education Centre from Building 21 to Building 20.  This is a much larger area and is right on North Fort Rd so more people notice it as they are walking past.

2012 February - North Head Sanctuary recognised with new signage
New signage was erected near the archway across the road from Manly Hospital - this signage advertises the various uses of North Head and gives a prominent place to "North Head Sanctuary".

2017 June - Another re-introduction of species formerly known to be on North Head
There have been several successful re-introductions of species, such as bush rats and pygmy possums , to North Head since the Sanctuary has been established. Click here to read about the re-introduction of the brown antechinus.

2018 May - Ecological study of bushland response to fire
Working with staff from Fire &Rescue NSW, the Harbour Trust's Peter Jensen, and fire ecologist Dr Kate Hamill, NHSF volunteers documented the responses of plant species across quadrats burnt at differing intensities during a planned Hazard reduction burn.

2018 June - Taxidermy displays introduced to Bandicoot Heaven
With assistance from Northern Beaches Stop Roadkill and former Australian Museum taxidermist George Hangay, a Powerful Owl, Tawny Frogmouth, juvenile Brushtail and Ringtail Possums and a slightly scrawny Long-nosed Bandicoot were added to Bandicoot Heaven’s displays.

2019 April - Liaison with Indigigrow re shared interests
As part of recognition of NHSF’s achievements during the first decade of Nursery and Community education activities, information and visits were exchanged with the LaPerouse-based Aboriginal plant Nursery, Indigrow.

2019 May - 10 years of volunteering at North Head
As part of our agreement with the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust, we regularly record our volunteer effort, both in the native plant Nursery and in Bandicoot Heaven & community outreach, as well as in our opportunistic ‘citizen science’ projects. Taking 2018-2019 as a fairly typical year since our agreement with the Harbour Trust was established, our Nursery volunteers contributed 3144 hours of plant propagation, planted 2260 plants of 63 different species and maintained these across numerous sites agreed with the Harbour Trust. Community education volunteers interacted with 5128 visitors, and our volunteers also conducted approximately 150 hours of citizen science research.

2020 - Restoration work on ‘Bandicoot Heaven community education room
COVID resulted in a shut-down of all activities except critical maintenance of Nursery plants. This provided an opportunity to refresh and do minor restoration work and repainting of Bandicoot Heaven community education room, taking care to respect the significance of the building as part of North Head’s built/cultural heritage.

2020 October - Hazard reduction burn escape
A planned Hazard Reduction burn near Sydney Water’s Sewerage Treatment Plant escaped despite extensive preparation. It burnt approximately 62ha. Australian Wildlife Conservancy did outstanding short-term recovery work following this fire.

2021 April - Planting of a new ‘Lone Pine’ beside Memorial Walk
Nursery volunteers participated in the planting of a Lone Pine which they had cared for fir the Royal Australian Artillery History Company, as a replacement for a Lone Pine lost during the escaped fire.

2021 May - Biennial national bushfire conference North Head Field Day
NHSF volunteers assisted with planning for and conduct of the field day as part of the NSW Nature Conservation Council’s biennial bushfire conference.

2021 December - Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub upgraded to Critically Endangered
After an extensive review process the New South Wales Scientific Committee upgraded the status of Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub from Endangered to Critically Endangered.

2022 February - Preparing frog habitat
In February Nursery volunteers began putting rocks and logs in place to improve the habitat for frogs in a ‘soak’ area off the end of Bluefish Drive. Heavy rainfall followed quickly and frogs were soon living in this new ‘Frog Habitat’

2022 March - Huge rainstorm causes North Fort stone wall to collapse
A torrential rain event on 9 March (in which more than 130mm fell in one hour) caused lots of damage, including that caused by a wall of water that rushed down the track from near the Third Cemetery. It crashed into the sandstone wall near the Harbour Trust’s Visitor Centre, then continued on past Bella Vista café, laden with rocks and debris. Over time, heritage contractors to the Harbour Trust did a good job of restoring the wall.

2022 July/August - Nursery support for National Parks plantings in Fairfax Lookouts area
Nursery volunteers diligently propagated and cared for substantial numbers of seedlings of several local species to assist NPWS in restoring the work areas below the North Head car parks and on the way to Fairfax lookouts. In all, around 1,000 seedlings were provided for planting out in this area.

2023 February - Award-winning ‘North Head Scenic Area’ opened
After a long process of design, planning and construction new sandstone lookouts and surrounding walking tracks at North Head were opened by then State Environment Minister and Manly MP James Griffin. It is pleasing for NHSF volunteers to know they played a part in the restoration of the area by providing appropriate local plants for the area.

2023 March - Signing of new Lease & Licence to operate
After almost three years of intermittent dialogue, NHSF was pleased to sign with the Harbour Trust both a 3-year lease and a licence to operate our native plant Nursery, Community Education and occasional Citizen Science projects. While much more detailed than the original Memorandum of Understanding, the agreement enables continuation of our conservation activities on North Head, with leasing costs offset by the volunteer hours we work.

2023 September - Botanic Gardens Sydney and National Herbarium plant survey of Harbour trust land at North Head
After considerable background research, preparation, and a familiarisation visit, a team of botanists and other professional staff from the Botanic Gardens and National Herbarium spent an intense day of field surveying and specimen collection to document the plant-life on the Harbour Trust’s North Head site. A small number of long-time NHSF members were fortunate enough to be invited to guide and assist the visiting team in this endeavour, which greatly enhanced knowledge of the plant life on the site.

2023 - Survey of echidna population 10 years on
A repeat of the citizen science survey of echidnas living on North head in 2013-14, suggests an increase in the population of these spiky little monotremes, from an estimated 18 adults in 2013-14 to 34 in 2022-23.

2024 - Renewal of plant identification labels along bush tracks
After more than five years in place, it was time to replace damaged and fading name tags on 40 of the Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub species that are found on track edges across the Harbour Trust site. Each sign includes a QR code which takes the visitor to an information page on our website about that species.

2024 - Farewell to Australian Wildlife Conservancy: Welcome to Anderson Environment & Planning
After many years of collaboration, we were sad to farewell Australian Wildlife Conservancy from North Head as a result of changes to the Harbour Trust’s leasing arrangements, which saw the environmental management role put out to tender. The contract was taken up by Anderson Environment & Planning.

2025 January/February - a new bushland ‘restoration’ project
Nursery volunteers are in the early stages of planning a new restoration planting project for the degraded bushland area opposite houses along St Barbaras Avenue.