THE Bowraville community came out in numbers for the Lanes Bridge Tree Planting and Information Day, to help combat the massive bank erosion the Nambucca River has experienced due to bush fires and flooding events.

The focus of the project is to revegetate degraded riverbank for stabilisation; areas where the tree canopy has been removed makes for erosion and exotic weed infiltration.

Project organiser Logan Zingius, a Landcare Project Officer, said, “The river regeneration is primarily the most important part of the catchment, it affects every aspect of the system, most importantly culturally, environmentally, and agriculturally.”

“The removal of woody debris and the lowering of the river bed (gravel mining) has made for a faster flowing river.

“During flooding events the waterways are like pipes to store water, without woody debris the river flow is not slowed, combine this with a lower river bed, causing higher river banks, the river naturally cuts out the banks and causes bank erosion, instead of flowing over the banks and into paddocks.”

Regeneration projects like these usually take about ten to fifteen years to complete.

Volunteer Pierre Wilkinson said, “There’s a good number of volunteers today, I just potter along with the planting now that I’ve retired.”

“I used to work in land regeneration and today we’ll be planting for top bank revegetation.”

There were approximately sixteen volunteers on hand to help with the planting of 700 trees.

Alan Kaali is a nurseryman with a passion for native plants and has grown most of the plants from local seeds for the project.

“Today we’ll be planting about 700 trees, 300 Lamandras bank stabilisation plants, and the rest are keystone species like Water housia (Weeping Lilly Pilly), and nitrogen fixing Snow Wood Mimosaceae.”

Ageratum houstonianum (Billy Goat Weed) is usually one of the first weeds to colonise degraded areas, and prevents other native plants from establishing.

Its competitive ability impacts upon native biodiversity.

The work at Lanes Bridge is a partnership between Landcare, Recreational Fishers, Nambucca Shire Council, NSW Government, land owners, and the community.

For more information phone 02 6564 7838 or contact projectsupport@nvlandcare.org.au.

 

By Karen GRIBBIN