The ongoing regeneration program is orchestrated by Coffs Harbour Regional Landcare (CHRL) and supported by GeoLINK and City of Coffs Harbour’s Coastal Works bush regeneration team.

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After the October 2021 hailstorm that hit the headland hard, stripping it of foliage and destroying the natural habitat, Landcare’s focus has been revegetation of the devastated north face.

GeoLINK Coffs Harbour approached Landcare in 2022 seeking to fund and volunteer in a local project involving tree planting that fitted with their company’s carbon offset program.

“We love this project; it’s a highlight in our company calendar and what a stunning location!” Jessica O’Leary, an ecologist with GeoLINK told News Of The Area.

“We can be quite office-based, writing vegetation management plans, yet we don’t get to put the plants in the ground, so this feels great!” she said.

Most of the young trees planted were grown at the CHRL nursery.

“She-oaks, coast wattle and banksias; they’re all endemic to the headland, replacing like-for-like, to build back the native bird and animal habitat,” CHRL president Barry Powells told NOTA.

Barry praised the partnership with GeoLINK and City of Coffs Harbour’s Coastal Works bush regeneration team, led by Aaron Hartley, with co-funding by GeoLINK and Council’s Environment Levy.

“They’re both marvellous,” he said.

Aaron is an ardent advocate for headland restoration.

“This is a site we’ve been involved with for 26 years,” he said, “the whole of this area along Sawtell Beach has a long history of bush regeneration works.

“All headlands are very significant on all our reserves because of their rare plants and rare communities,” he told NOTA.

“They’ve all got a lot of Indigenous history.”

There are three threatened ecological communities on the Boambee Headland site; a small patch of littoral Rainforest, Themeda grassland of sea cliffs and headlands, and a patch of threatened Floyd’s grass.

The latter was named after its discoverer, the late esteemed botanist Alex Floyd, a founder of Coffs Harbour’s Botanic Gardens.

Reports of a pair of glossy black-cockatoos returning to Boambee Headland in the past couple of weeks is welcome news to the group.

The threatened species was prolific on the headland prior to the hailstorm.

“We’d see twelve or fourteen of them up here,” said Barry.

“After the storm I always hoped they’d gone down to Bongil Bongil National Park where they would find their habitat and food.”

White-faced honeyeaters and the superb fairy wren are now both frequenting the headland in good numbers.

“And the swamp wallabies are always here.

“They can be quite destructive but they’re part of nature, hence the guards we put up around the new plantings to stop them eating all the young trees.”

The guards can stay around the young trees for two to three years to ensure they’re very well established and the wallabies can’t pull them over or snap the trunks.

Trees that were stripped in the hailstorm are also bearing good signs of recovery.

“Red bean trees are growing back and tuckeroos are coming back, slowly but surely,” said Barry.

Landcare volunteer Helen Minogue praised those who throw on their overalls and bend their backs for weekly weeding sessions.

“It’s a pretty good place to volunteer,” she said, extending her view to scan the crashing waves on Boambee Beach where whales had been spotted the day before.

“You feel like you’re part of a legacy when you put in trees and pull out weeds, doing something that will be there in decades to come.”

Helen says she gets a dopamine hit from planting trees.

“Some things stick, and I’ve always loved trees,” she said.

By Andrea FERRARI