The Wagonga Landcare group has provided TLC to the salt marsh habitat at Narooma. Photo: Jay Bird Facebook.
A community is putting down new roots in the fight against erosion in a low-lying stretch of coast near Narooma.
Wagonga Landcare Group has joined Little Lake and Dalmeny Landcare, and Eurobodalla Shire Council to restore salt marsh habitat at Narooma.
Landcare volunteer coordinator Jay Drury said his group was one of two Landcare groups in their coastal town.
“Our mission statement is to look after the bushland that hugs around the edges of the Wagonga Inlet … [and] going out to the back of town, towards the subtropical rainforest parcels of bush that are out the back of town, as well,” he told Region.
“It’s a really broad area, but it’s about targeting those little areas and trying to find where volunteers could be utilised to help.”
It is building on the work of an award-winning project that focused on revitalising the foreshore of Wagonga Inlet, and will work to create a ‘living shoreline’ on an area near Riverside Drive (north of Quota Park).
It’s an approach that sees a deliberate planting of plants and other natural materials to stabilise a shoreline.
“The end goal is biodiversity, and everything up to there – including how it looks – is a secondary benefit,” he said.
“Without having a mindful planning approach to what you’re trying to achieve, you can get a bit lost … The idea of the living shoreline is to promote a lot of biodiversity, creating food and habitat for a range of different species.”
Jay said the plants were chosen to match the local environment, meaning they “work in tandem” and are “very salt tolerant”.
But before they could start adding plants, Jay said Landcare volunteers and council staff had to tackle an invasive grass species.
“[A different team] from council went in and removed a bunch of invasive kikuyu grass – it grows really thick and stifles the ability for native plants to be able to grow through it,” he said.
“You can think of a situation where little, tiny seedlings are trying to grow through that are native plants, and they can’t, because they’re blocked from sunlight, they’re blocked from food.”
The dead grass was then repurposed as mulch and an extra layer of protection for the seedlings.
Two main planting days were held before Christmas so the Landcare volunteers could plant hundreds of plants.
Jay said the volunteers were able to plant about 230 plants each day.
Three more planting days are already locked in across February and March, Jay said, to take advantage of warmer conditions.
“Over the course of a few different planting days [in late 2025], we’ve got one-third of the way there … We want to get the project planted out before we hit the cold, dry middle of the year,” Jay said.
People have been checking on the plants after the recent wild weather, hoping the saplings survived the rain and heat.
“We had some crazy heatwave days. We had some really bad, windy days as well,” Jay said.
“Juvenile plants – and plants – in general, they don’t really love that combination … Hopefully we did pretty well, and there’s still a fair few plants there.”
He hopes the finished project will connect with the Wagonga Inlet project – which officially opened in early 2025 – and draws people to Narooma.
“I’ll walk through the ‘living shoreline’, and I’ll see migratory birds that are endangered species from Indonesia and stuff coming to our town and nesting and having babies and promoting that future biodiversity,” he said.
“That’s something to be very proud of.”
Anyone interested in joining the upcoming planting sessions can find out more on the Wagonga Landcare Group’s Facebook page.
