The Bega Valley has a long stretch of beautiful coastline, including Mimosa Rocks at Aragunnu, which will benefit from state government funding. Photo: John Yurasek, NPWS.
The Bega Valley Shire’s beautiful coastline will share $6.7 million of NSW Government funding to help rehabilitate many of its beaches.
Minister for Local Government Wendy Tuckerman said a key focus of the Coastal and Estuary Grant Program was future-proofing communities and ecosystems from climate change.
“Seven coastal councils have successfully received funding for 13 different projects to better manage coastal erosion, protect wetlands and manage local estuaries,” she said.
Bega Valley Shire Council is one of the successful councils and has secured funds for the Dune Resilience Project, although council’s coastal management officer Rachel Duczynski said it was waiting on confirmation on the final project scope and funding amount.
“The project will involve rehabilitation works at many of our beaches across the shire,” she said.
“This will include weed control and revegetation to stabilise and enhance dune systems to reduce current risks to natural and built assets and increase resilience to future threats from climate change.
“The project is expected to commence in the next few months.”
Ms Duczynski said the natural protection through strong dune systems is the priority defence against coastal hazards in the shire.
“The coastal zone is vulnerable to multiple threats, including coastal erosion and inundation, sea level rise, weed intrusion, pests and human disturbance via illegal clearing and informal access,” she said.
She also said extreme climatic conditions the shire experienced over the last two years had exacerbated issues along its coastline.
“Large swell events have increased erosion on beaches creating beach scarps, damaging access tracks and vegetation loss due to overtopping,” Ms Duczynski said.
“Successive flood events have increased transport of weeds along the coast, particularly near estuary entrances.
“Increased rainfall has also resulted in prolific growth of weeds which are overtaking native vegetation.”
Council expects there will be opportunities for community involvement in the rehabilitation works and will update the community as the project progresses.
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