Local Landcare Coordinators

From 2015 – 2019 the NSW Government is funding Landcare NSW and the Local Landcare Coordinator initiative throughout NSW to unlock the full potential of the thousands of volunteers in the Landcare network. Read more about the program

Greater Sydney Landcare Network successfully applied to employ the two part-time coordinators listed below. In the Greater Sydney region five Local Landcare coordinators are employed including the two who are working with the Greater Sydney Landcare network.

Contact details for each of the Local Landcare Coordinators are listed below.

Xuela Sledge

Xuela Sledge has a Degree in Environmental Science, with a Graduate Diploma in Vocational Education and Training.

She has been working in the environmental field for 20 years. Xuela has held roles working with Threatened Species, which is her real passion. Working with the community to help encourage the conservation of our disappearing plants and animals is the skill that she brings to GSLN, concentrating on the Cumberland Plain.

Previous employers have included National Parks and Wildlife, Nature Conservation Council, Environmental Protection Authority, Humane Society International, TafeNSW and other private organisations including consultancies. She is a founding Director of Earth Recovery Australia which rescues food from landfill and distributes it to those in need in the Upper Blue Mountains. Xuela likes to discuss those environmental issues that are always put into the too hard basket, including road kill and wild dog culling – considering the impact this is having on the Dingo. She currently focuses on building the volunteer movement across western Sydney by introducing habitat and more fauna related activities into Bushcare. One day Xuela would like to see community fox trapping programs across the landscape and a return of many of the small marsupials we have come so close to losing.

Elisha Duxbury

Elisha Duxbury is a Local Landcare Coordinator with Greater Sydney Landcare Network. She is extremely passionate about understanding the ways urbanisation affects ecosystems and applying that knowledge to real-world projects. Elisha has been involved with on-ground environmental restoration since 2008 as a volunteer and bush regenerator. She has BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences with a focus on urban ecology. Recently, she returned to university to pursue a Masters looking at the ways green infrastructure in Western Sydney can both provide ecosystem services and maximize biodiversity.

In her role with Greater Sydney Elisha focuses on supporting and empowering young people who want to become a part of the Landcare movement. She coordinated the delivery of the Western Sydney and South West Sydney Landcare Leadership Retreats in collaboration with Intrepid Landcare, which lead to the formation of networks of young people participating in environmental volunteering in their local areas and developing their own projects. As a 2017 Young Sustainability Ambassador she worked with students at Hawkesbury High School to develop their own biodiversity project.