Environmental scientist and Landcare volunteer and secretary Kristen den Exter has spent her life planting trees and regenerating the land. Bringing life back to the riverbanks of Lismore is one of her passions. She encourages everyone to come to Riverfest on September 7 and Big Scrub Rainforest Day on September 21.

Floating down the Wilson’s River in a canoe and looking at the trees she planted on the riverbank 25 years ago is one of Landcare volunteer Kristen den Exter’s favourite things to do in Lismore.

Landcare volunteer Vanessa Ekins shares time with Kristen den Exter on the Wilson's River looking at the 25 year old tree plantings.

Kristen has been a passionate volunteer with the Wilson's River Landcare Group since 1994. The group, established in 1990, is one of the first Landcare groups to be established in NSW.

Kristen said planting trees and regenerating the landscape has always been a way of life for her and her family. 

“My dad was a tree man and was arrested at the Terania Creek logging protests in the 1970s,” she said. 

“He was a passionate conservationist, educator and lobbyist. I was seven when I went to my first Terania Creek meeting - till things got too heated.

“In the 70s, my dad could already see decline in the forests and he had a plant nursery down the side of our house in Lismore. He knew that if everybody could plant trees, we’d provide another part of the solution."

Inspired by her father, Kristen went on to study environmental science and became a lecturer in the environmental science department at Southern Cross University (SCU). She now works as an engagement facilitator based at SCU Lismore campus, as well as being the secretary of the Landcare group. 

“As an environmental scientist, it can be pretty depressing and emotionally taxing when you know about the rate of species decline, so I had to do something and I went and found people who planted trees.”

In 1994, she joined together with two other women and a lawn mower and started planting trees at the Duck Pond in South Lismore. Their energy sparked a vibrant volunteer organisation that is still systematically regenerating the riverbanks and parks in Lismore, on public and private land. 

“Once you start doing it, the trees become our babies,” she said. “And as we see the ecosystems come back to life - I don’t ever want to stop.

“One of the things that sustains me is meeting and working with others and trying to turn around 200 years of the devastation that colonialism and deforestation has wreaked on this country.”

Kristen said the best way to see the Wilson’s River as it might have looked before the land was cleared is to take a canoe past the rainforest trees planted in Pritchard Park in North Lismore (near the skating rink). 

The view from a canoe of both sides of the Pritchard Park plantings on the Wilson's River.

“I’ve had a long love affair with this area,” she said. “In 25 years, we have transformed it and planted on both sides of the river, so you get a feel what the riverbank is like with vegetation.” 

One side of the river at Pritchard Park is a 25 year old planting which was planted at the first National Tree Day in 1994 with EnVITE and the help of school kids. The other side of the river is a 15 year old planting.

“At the site you can hear a phenomenal symphony of bird sound,” Kristen said.

“I saw a kingfisher there a couple of months ago. The kingfisher told me ‘you’ve put back enough trees for me’.

“We’ll never get back what was taken from the Big Scrub rainforest years ago, but in that area, it feels like the plantings have always been there. 

“I don’t thing we realised what we were doing when we started. We knew riverbank needed it, and the trees grow fast if maintained well. 

“When you cross Faucets Bridge and look upstream at the trees we planted, it fills our hearts with joy.”

“Originally, there was just camphor laurel, jacaranda and privet growing behind the skating rink until the Rainforest Information Centre planted rainforest trees there. It then became the focus of Landcare’s attention and we had green core teams working there. 

Pictured: Dave de Nardi, Dave Dreher, Kristin den Exter, Marty, Vanessa Ekins. Picture by

Andrew Sooby

“The most recent plantings are behind the Winsome Hotel gully and in Pritchard Park, we are now working with neighbouring landholders.”

The Pritchard Park site was only 800 meters of riverbank, but Kristen said it was hard work to keep everything viable. 

“Planting trees is a long term project - it’s the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “The majority of work is before planting to get the site ready - then we keep the trees alive.

As the sites grew bigger and older, the lawnmower just wasn’t enough anymore. So the Landcare group now uses larger machinery for maintenance and works with the support of with Lismore City Council in planning and maintaining the sites. 

Kristen said she grew up in Lismore through many years of floods and saw the inundation of the town with flood water. 

“I understood why people wanted the levy wall built, but it was a turning point for me when we started to lose that connection with the river and the river landscape,” she said. “So we planted so many trees for Lismore City Council at the time on public land along the river.”

With a core group of five volunteer organisers, Wilson’s River Landcare Group relies on the helping hands of everyone in the community who come along to the organised community tree planting days twice a year.

Volunteers planting trees at National Tree Day this year.

“At National Tree Day this year, lots of people in the local community came along to help with the tree planting and we’re hoping more will turn out for the tree planting for the 21st annual Big Scrub Rainforest Day on September 21,” she said.

The day is organised in conjunction with Big Scrub Landcare group, Planet Ark and Helping Hands. 

“Everyone is welcome to join us to plant at Simes bridge at 11am on September 21 - we don’t like getting up too early,” Kristen laughed. 

“It’s the bridge on way to Richmond River High School at the end of Molesworth Street where it becomes Winterton Parade. Bring your water bottle and be sun smart.”

Next weekend, on September 7, Riverfest will be held at Riverside Park, near Ballina Road Bridge on the Wilson’s River. It’s a family friendly community event celebrating the river and strengthening our connection to it, with lots of entertainment and information stalls.

“We’re working in partnership with Northern Rivers Science Hub and Helping Hands to bring Riverfest to the banks of the river and spread some river love,” Kristen said.

“We have to embrace that we live on a flood plain and reconnect with the river. It’s the confluence of two different catchments coming together and well never change that. Our amazing wetlands and floodplains need those floods, but it causes us stress.

“The more in tune we are with the river, we can make a new approach to disasters like flooding. 

“This festival is a way for people to come share talks and stories and reconnect with the river. 

“We’ll bring the SES and emergency response teams together with the canoe club and speakers from our community to talk about how we can all support each other living in a river city.”

Kristen said the Wilson’s River has been declared one of the most unhealthy rivers on the east coast.

“It’s not healthy enough for us to swim in,” she said. “We’ve taken our water for granted and the catchment needs us. How can we be resilient as a river city and repair some of the damage that’s been done?”

“While the eastern freshwater cod used to be a fish species living in the river, now it is extinct because the water quality is too poor. 

“But the river is still home to many creatures under the water we don’t see.

“There are bass in the river – a species of estuarine fish that travels up the tidal river to Boat Harbour, where we have marine water mixing that occurs.

“There are freshwater mussels, turtles and eels in the creeks and fishing bats in Brown’s Creek drain that fish river turtles. We also have a carp problem and have an annual carp muster.

“So the river isn’t dead. It’s very much alive. It’s just very big.

“The more we connect with country, the more healing and respect there will be for our country and nation, including our First Peoples too. 

“Recently at the National Tree Day planting, we had the most moving acknowledgement of country and Aunty Thelma James told us stories of the sites we were working on. There’s so much history of the utilisation of the river that we don’t know about. 

“Landcare is for everybody and we need to do it because people have done wrong. Our rivers were cleared first so that the first settlers could get out of their boats. They grew corn on river bank and they used the rivers as roads to get to the cedar. 

“Prior to European settlement the Big Scrub was the largest tract of lowland subtropical rainforest in Australia. This rainforest has since been reduced to less than 1% of its former range.

"As a result the NSW Scientific Committee recently determined that lowland rainforest on floodplain in the NSW North Coast Bio-region is an endangered ecological community.”

Kristen encourages people to come along to the future planting days and help out regenerating the forest, but if they can’t be there, they can help fund buying the resources needed to do the work. And Landcare will be happy to plant the trees for them.

Volunteers planting trees at National Tree Day this year.

“We’re 25 years on and I say ‘more trees’,” she said. 

“One of my roles is as fundraiser and we’ve been crowd-funding to help buy resources like trees and mulch. We’ve already raised over $3000 and are always looking for more contributions.

“We collaborate and source trees locally from Firewheel Nursery, friends of the Koala and Friends of Lismore Rainforest Botanic Gardens.

“Ngulingah tree nursery propagate at Nimbin rocks nursery and have an amazing collection of bush food species. 

“If you want to plant trees, make sure they are collected locally.

For more information about Riverfest at Riverside Park by the Wilson’s River, near the dog park on Victoria Street on September 7, from 11am to 4pm, click here.

For more information about Big Scrub Rainforest Day, click here.

For information about Wilson’s River Landcare Group Inc click here.