The Reserve
Why the lakes need us
Perry Lakes is recovering. The water is back, the birds have returned, and something that was genuinely at risk of being lost is finding its way back. But recovery isn’t the same as stability — and an ecosystem in a fragile, early phase of restoration needs something that management plans and infrastructure alone can’t provide: consistent, knowledgeable, community attention. That’s what we’re here for.
Photo: Ian Stewart
Home / The Reserve/ Why the lakes need us
A place under pressure
A wetland in the middle of a city
Perry Lakes sits in the middle of one of Perth’s most densely settled inner suburbs. It’s a living wetland system surrounded by roads, houses, gardens, and everything that urban life brings with it. The reserve doesn’t exist in isolation — it’s shaped by the catchment around it, the groundwater beneath it, and the city that has grown up alongside it over the past century.
That context creates real and ongoing pressure. Not because of any single cause or any single decision — but because urban wetlands like Perry Lakes are inherently vulnerable to the cumulative effects of the landscape they sit in.
Country & History
Five ongoing pressures
Whadjuk Noongar country, the 1962 Commonwealth Games transformation, and the community stewardship story that began in 2021.
Declining groundwater
Perth’s groundwater has been declining for decades. Reduced rainfall, increased extraction, and the replacement of native vegetation with hard surfaces across the catchment all affect the shallow aquifer that Perry Lakes depends on. The replenishment scheme has restored lake levels dramatically — but the system remains dependent on active water management to maintain what’s been achieved.
Nutrient loading
Water entering the lakes from the Herdsman Main Drain carries nutrients — primarily phosphorus — from the surrounding urban catchment. When phosphorus levels rise too high, conditions become favourable for toxic cyanobacteria blooms of the kind that have affected nearby wetlands. Managing nutrient inputs is one of the most important ongoing challenges for the reserve.
Invasive plants
Introduced species are persistent and opportunistic. Without regular removal, invasive plants outcompete native vegetation, reduce habitat complexity, and undermine the restoration work being done across the reserve. This is a problem that doesn’t solve itself — it requires consistent, on-the-ground effort season after season.
Invasive animals
Carp and other introduced fish species affect water quality by disturbing lake sediments and remobilising nutrients. Invasive insects — including the Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer — threaten the reserve’s tree canopy. Active monitoring and early detection are critical.
Urban edge effects
The reserve is bounded by roads, gardens, and residential properties. Fertiliser runoff, pet predation on native fauna, light and noise disturbance, and the introduction of weeds from adjacent gardens are all ongoing considerations. The health of the reserve is partly determined by what happens just outside it.
Why stewardship makes the difference
What a management plan alone can’t do
The Town of Cambridge manages Perry Lakes Reserve under the Perry Lakes Reserve Management Plan 2021–2031 — a rigorous, science-informed framework that covers water management, vegetation restoration, pest control, and community engagement.
FoPL exists to work alongside that plan — not to duplicate it, but to do the things that a community of committed, locally-grounded people can do that no management plan alone can achieve.
That means showing up every week to pull weeds from areas that can’t wait for the monthly program. It means recording water levels, quality, and wildlife observations consistently over years — building the kind of long-term dataset that makes management decisions more informed. It means being the eyes on the ground that notice when something has changed, and the voice that makes sure it doesn’t go unobserved.
It means that the reserve has a community — and that community is paying attention.
“The health of Perry Lakes over the coming decades will depend on sustained community involvement as much as it depends on infrastructure and management. These things work best together.”
A place worth caring for
The reserve is responding
83
Bird species recorded at Perry Lakes
[X]
Native plant species figure to confirm
12,000+
Native plants established since 2021
4
Years of continuous monitoring data
Perry Lakes supports 83 bird species, oblong turtles, quenda, microbats, banjo frogs, and a growing native plant community — and these numbers are building as the restoration effort gains momentum. The lakes function as a drought refuge for species across the Swan Coastal Plain when other wetlands dry out. They’re part of a chain of urban wetlands that together form a system far more valuable than any single reserve.
This is a place that repays attention. It changes with the seasons, responds to rainfall, shifts with water levels. Something is always happening here — and the more people who are watching, the more we know, and the better placed we are to protect what’s coming back.
What we’re doing about it
Every weeding session, every water quality reading, every sighting recorded — it all contributes to an accumulating body of knowledge and action that makes a measurable difference.
Become part of the community that’s paying attention.