The Fishermans Bay community planting was a great success!
By Josephine O’Brien, Team Leader Fishermans Bay
Friends of Tomaree National Park
Thank you to everyone that came and lent a hand. Over 20 people planted an amazing 550+ seedlings at the top of the degraded gully. What a stunning effort!
Wonderful to see so many community people and children helping the Fishermans Bay group of the Friends of Tomaree National Park, an activity Celebrating 40 Years of Tomaree National Park | 2024.
The planting is a huge step in the restoration of the Beach Gully at Fishermans Bay which has been infested with weeds and was badly eroded.
The site has undergone an amazing transformation from the Lantana, Bitou, Coral Tree and Cape Ivy infestation just 3 years ago.
Cape Ivy smothering the Banksias (left), now released to rejuvenate and soon the dead Cape Ivy will rot away (above)
Several riffles, or banks of rocks across the gully mimicking riffles in natural streams, were installed to control erosion, slowing the water flow during high rainfall events and reduce scouring. The local Rhyolite rock used provided a natural look typical of the area.
We’re looking forward to the seedlings thriving over the coming months. Plants ranged from trees such as the occasional banksia and casuarina, bushes including low acacias and myoporum or boobiala, to a range of reeds, sedges and grasses, to attractive ground covers. This will be exciting to watch grow.
And we all enjoyed a delicious barbeque and refreshments at the end of the morning, with thanks from the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
A special thank you to Henk Tobbe for the photos he generously took on the day. View more of Henk’s photos to get a feeling for the great vibe on the day.
A huge thank you to Johnston Earthmoving – without their donation of materials, equipment and staff time we could not have achieved what we did.
As always, we appreciated the support from the National Parks and Wildlife Service and their assistance with materials and contractors.
You may like to read more about the Friends of Tomaree National Park — we finding it very rewarding to know we are doing something really positive in contributing to the integrity of the park — or help out at a bush regen session, there’s three regular groups at various locations and we enjoy what we do.
This activity is one of the events in Celebrating 40 years of Tomaree National Park | 2024