Community revegetate degraded tracks on Guilderton dunes

Home 🞂 Newsroom 🞂 Community revegetate degraded tracks on Guilderton dunes

Media Release by Moore Catchment Council. 15 June 2016.

The north Guilderton dunes were a hive of activity on 12th June as nearly 50 people aged 5 to 93 gave up their Sunday morning to volunteer their time at the annual planting event. Rachel  almsley, Moore Catchment Council’s NRM Officer said “Despite the chilly start and the threat of rain, we once again had a fabulous turn out of volunteers including local and nearby residents, plus members of The 4WD Club of WA who have a keen membership wishing to take part in rehabilitation projects up and down the coast.” This is the second community planting event on the north dunes since an area was fenced off from vehicular access in 2014.

Natural revegetation of the degraded tracks is occurring slowly but these extra native seedlings planted will help move things along. The day started with a quick 101 of planting as a few people hadn’t planted on sand dunes before. Rachel said “The most important tip I shared was to plant each seedling as deep as possible to ensure the roots establish well. Even though the much appreciated recent rains have made the sand very wet, it will dry out quickly and the biggest threat to success is the hot dry Midwest summer.” The volunteers split into teams to tackle the three different sites and everyone got stuck in planting the 2,000+ seedlings which featured a dozen species found on the dunes. All new seedlings were fitted with corflute tree guards to protect them from the elements and nibbly pests. The weary planters were rewarded with lunch and a cuppa before a few hardcore vollies headed back on to the dunes to finish planting the last few seedlings. 32mm of rain fell Sunday night to help bed in the seedlings.

Rachel said “I thank everyone who came along to this event from near and far – you have made a real difference and I look forward to checking over the seedlings in the coming months. I also want to thank people behind the scenes including Bob Johnson for lending his trailer, Jim Laffer, Dean Brady and Barry and Ann Callen for helping move seedlings and tree guards on Saturday, Hamish Longbottom for helping coordinate, and the Guilderton Community Association for their continued support in environmental projects in Guilderton.”

The event and most of the seedlings were funded through a devolved grant received from the Northern Agricultural Catchment Council with funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Programme, with extra seedlings funded through a MCC WA Natural Resource Management Programme project which propagated dune seedlings at a workshop held in November 2015.

Community revegetate degraded tracks on Guilderton dunes
Guilderton volunteer planting team. Photo credit: Moore Catchments Council.

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