COASTAL WETLAND RESTORATION
The Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program
Restoring wetlands of our past, for our future.
Protecting coastal wetlands, stabilizing our shorelines, enhancing biodiversity, and improving natural capital.
The #VicWetlandRehab is a multi-disciplinary program– comprising Academia, Government, Industry, and Traditional Owners – guiding and undertaking the restoration of critical wetland habitat on both private and public land, helping to facilitate the recovery of some of Victoria’s most endangered birds, frogs and other threatened plants and animals.
This program allows Victorians to strategically invest in the health of our coast with respect to biodiversity enhancement, coastal and shoreline protection, marine life and fish habitat, and carbon sequestration – all of which are critical to our health, prosperity, and very existence.
Program overview
Coastal wetlands have seen loss of 9,000 ha, or roughly 25% of their pre-European extent, and continue to face a range of human impacts. The loss of, or disturbance to these ecosystems has had drastic negative impacts on Victoria’s biodiversity, particularly resident or migratory birds.
Victoria’s new Climate Change Act 2017 and the proposed Marine and Coastal Bill 2017 offer significant opportunities to develop systems to improve the management and protection of Victoria’s coastal and marine areas, of which coastal wetlands represent a critical but degraded asset.
Our project targets several threatened, high-priority conservation areas along the Victorian coast, spanning Port Phillip Bay, Western Port Bay, and the Gippsland Lakes. Coastal wetlands in each of these locations have been highly degraded. Port Phillip Bay, for example, has lost ~50% (1700 ha) of its coastal saltmarsh due to agricultural development, anthropogenic modifications to tidal flow, and urban development.
The preservation of wetlands provides us with the opportunity to test research solutions for helping mitigate climate change and improve natural capital whilst simultaneously contributing to economic growth, capacity building alongside land managers, and community wellbeing in Victoria.
The Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration program incorporates the following objectives:
Develop and test a wetland restoration and conservation strategy at a former salt works that will improve the existing ecological features while minimizing the need and cost for active site management and pumping.
Undertake on-ground restoration to repair threatened saltmarsh and wetland habitat using low cost, but high impact protection activities such as fencing.
Working with Traditional Owners to perform remedial work at a culturally significant coastal site containing the largest cluster of coastal Aboriginal cultural heritage sites within Port Phillip Bay.
Engaging local communities where restoration work is being completed to learn and help with the monitoring of the restoration works – thanks to a DELWP Community Climate Change Adaptation grant.
Explore
Through the Biodiversity Response Planning (BRP)– a new area-based planning approach to biodiversity conservation in Victoria, Deakin University’s Blue Carbon Lab has the opportunity to put years of science into on-ground action. To learn more about the on-ground actions, and research being done as part of this program you can explore the StoryMap.
Latest News
Follow #VicWetlandRehab on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram for on-going project updates.
<< Scroll to the left and right to access all the posts >>
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedHistorically natural coastal wetlands were converted to pastureland to maximize available farming area along Victoria’s coast. However, these coastal pastures limited theRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedThe Blue Carbon Lab has received $200,000 of funding from the Helen MacPherson Smith Trust for the Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program. This funding will be used to build uponRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedThis week is NAIDOC week, where we celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This year’s theme is Heal Country, whichRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedIt is with great sadness the unexpected passing of David Rhodes (November 19, 1958 – December 5, 2020). Dave was the directorRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedBack in October 2020, Chase Aghan – Project Officer (Forest, Fire and Parks) for Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation and Dr BradRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedThe Australian Ethical Foundation has invested funding through their strategic grant into a 3-year PhD scholarship for the Blue Carbon Lab toRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedTraining and pre-restoration vegetation surveys are underway! In partnership with Coastcare Victoria and the Arthur Rylah Institute (ARI) we hosted a vegetationRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are Closed12 months of greenhouse gas and vegetation data collection completed! With the easing of some COVID-19 restrictions, the Blue Carbon Lab wasRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedThanks to project cost savings we’ve been able to install additional protection of Saltmarsh Habitat in Western Port! After the completion ofRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedTime for tea! Exploring rates of carbon decomposition in different saltmarsh community types. As part of the Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program,Read more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedAs part of the Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration program, works are underway on our Gippsland Lakes saltmarsh site with vegetation monitoring andRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedThe Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program (#VicWetlandRehab) targets several threatened, high-priority conservation areas (including RAMSAR-listed wetlands that are critical for migratory andRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedDevelopment of a Restoration Action Plan is underway! Researchers from UNSW Water Research Lab are creating a hydrodynamic model to test restorationRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedMaster’s students from the Blue Carbon Lab are investigating the impacts of tidal restriction and tidal reinstatement on saltmarsh sediments. Saltmarshes areRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedScientists from the Blue Carbon Lab have begun measuring ebullition from retired sewage treatment freshwater ponds #EbullitionMission In 2019 we sampled aRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedOn January 2020, the #VicWetlandRehab team was back on our Western Port site to continue monitoring work! Due to the devastating bushfiresRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedContinue reading … Dr. Mel Wartman from the Blue Carbon Lab wrote a community engagement piece about Blue Carbon and the #VicWetlandRehabRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedThe Blue Carbon Lab headed back down to Avalon in mid-November 2019 to continue to monitor gas fluxes from the 6 differentRead more
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By Blue Carbon Lab | Comments are ClosedIn early November 2019, Wadawurrung Aboriginal Corporation (WAC) hosted an On Country meeting at Point Lillias to discuss management options with projectRead more
<< Scroll to the left and right to access all the posts >>
Selected Media and Outreach
- Blue Carbon: what is it and why do we care? An article written by Dr Melissa Wartman for Connected to Port Phillip blogpost (2019)
- Dr Melissa Wartman chats coastal wetlands and the Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program with Gerard Callinan from the Gippslandscapes Podcast. Listen to Episode 18: Blue Carbon – How wetlands and coastal fringes could save the planet. Oh and how the tea bag is doing its bit too! (2020)
- Discover our overachieving mangroves, wetlands and seagrass meadows and find out how they can help us deal with the climate emergency. Dr Paul Carnell and Dr Melissa Wartman talked to Connected to Port Phillip about blue carbon ecosystems and their importance for Port Phillip Bay and why they are working to restore them.
- Dr Paul Carnell and Dr Melissa Wartman presented at Victoria’s Nature Festival (September 2020). Check out the talk here.
- Blue Carbon Lab hosted a Virtual Stall at the Day by the Bay Festival 2020. This included Dr Paul Carnell giving a introduction talk about the Blue Carbon Lab’s work, including the #VicWetlandRehab Program.
- Chase Aghan and Dr Brad Farmilo presented at the SWIFFT seminars series in October 2020 on Native Grasslands. The talk showcased ‘two ways of knowing natural temperate grasslands of the Victorian Volcanic Plain’ and was hosted by Victoria’s State Wide Integrated Flora and Fauna Teams (SWIFFT). You can watch the talk on Youtube here.
- Dr Melissa Wartman presented at VEAC’s Science into management: Research on Victoria’s public land virtual symposium. Check out the talk here
Awards
- Dr Melissa Wartman was a 2020 Victorian finalist for the Young Achiever IKON Services Environmental Sustainability Award for her role as project manager for the Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program.
- The Victorian Coastal Wetland Restoration Program was a finalist in the 2021 SERA Award for Ecological Restoration Excellence (Large Project)
Selected Publications
Gulliver, A., Carnell, P.E., Trevathan-Tackett, S.M., Duarte de Paula Costa, M., Masqué, P. and Macreadie, P.I., 2020. Estimating the Potential Blue Carbon Gains From Tidal Marsh Rehabilitation: A Case Study From South Eastern Australia. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, p.403.
Documents/Reports/Papers
Newsletter (5 edition | Feb 2020)
Newsletter (4 edition | June 2020)
Newsletter (3 edition | Dec 2019)
Newsletter (2 edition | Sept 2019)
Funding sources
This program is funded by the Victorian Government’s Biodiversity Response Planning (BRP) program and is helping ensure that Victoria’s natural environment is healthy, valued and actively cared for. Partial funding support was provided by Deakin University and The Nature Conservancy (including a contribution from Dow Australia).
Project Partners
This work is led by Deakin University’s Blue Carbon Lab, involving partners from Parks Victoria; Greening Australia; UNSW Water Research Laboratory; Corangamite CMA, West Gippsland CMA; Melbourne Water; CoastCare Victoria; South Gippsland Conservation Society; The Nature Conservancy; Tasman Environmental Markets; Dow Australia; NSW Fisheries; and the Wadawurrung Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation.
Progress
