Plantings and seeding work has been undertaken by Byron Shire Council recently in the New Brighton dunes following beach scraping works earlier this year.
Visitors and locals are being reminded to stick to the formal beach access paths to avoid trampling new plantings and damaging the dunes.
‘It takes time and a huge community effort to regenerate coastal dunes and so we’re reminding everyone to respect the dune environment while they’re out and about enjoying our beautiful beaches,’ Council’s Coastal Biodiversity Coordinator Chloe Dowsett said.
Council recently engaged Bushland Restoration to undertake planting and seeding work that consisted of collecting plant material such as Spinifex, Goats Foot and Pigface cuttings and planting across the entire 1.3km length of the New Brighton dune.
‘The establishment of vegetation in a dune system helps to keep the dune intact and aids in combating coastal hazards and storms,’ pointed out Ms Dowsett.
‘We want to ensure that all this hard work and effort is not undone by beach users trampling new plants, dumping garden waste or introducing invasive weeds on their shoes.’
Oh the irony…. Council says: “we want to ensure that all this hard work and effort is not undone blah….” So where was council’s “Coastal Biodiversity Coordinator” when Council staff, supervised by Council engineers trashed these dunes and buried the hundreds of trees, shrubs and groundcovers planted for stability on this exact site and maintained by New Brighton Landcare volunteers, before returning the dunes to the exact same height?
The majority of those established plantings now destroyed could have, and should have, been retained. Now it has been replanted for stability with fewer species in the height of summer! Nothing is established. There will be little prospect of many of these plants surviving through the upcoming storm season, let along growing enough offering any additional protection and stability. It highlights once again the lack of environmental considerations incorporated into many of councils engineering decisions. An afterthought addressed only after volunteers complained about Councils vandalism! But look out for compliance officers if anyone else were to kill a tree!
And which invasive weed species on the dunes are “introduced on their shoes”? All platitudes, no credibility. And now handed back to the community to manage.