Wetland restoration works reach major milestone
An $11.69 million project to restore vital habitats on the Limestone Coast has hit a key milestone, boosting biodiversity and strengthening the region’s natural resilience.
A new regulator has been installed at the western edge of Lake Hawdon North as part of the Healthy Coorong, Healthy Basin program’s Regional Bird Refugia project, jointly funded by the Australian and South Australian governments.
The regulator will help improve the quality and availability of wetland habitat for migratory and non-migratory shorebirds in the Coorong and Limestone Coast region by allowing the system’s water levels to be managed to maintain a shallow inundation of the lakebed.
The infrastructure will extend the duration of optimal water levels at the wetland through late summer and autumn, helping to recreate a more natural hydrological environment for shorebirds. During times of higher flows, water will move through the system unaffected by the regulator.
The works are designed to help populations of key shorebird species including the sharp-tailed sandpiper, curlew sandpiper, common greenshank and red-necked stint, all species that use the Coorong South Lagoon.
The regulator structure features an adjoining rock-ramp fishway, which allows fish to swim upstream, around the regulator, whilst in operation.
Department for Environment and Water (DEW) Healthy Coorong, Healthy Basin Program Leader Tom Overall, said wetland regulators can play a key role in creating positive ecological outcomes by supporting biodiversity in wetland habitats.
“The restoration of wetlands like Lake Hawdon North that exist in the broader landscape of the Coorong region will materially benefit Coorong waterbird populations, whilst providing substantial ecological benefits to other plants and animals of the region,” Mr Overall said.
“The Lake Hawdon North project is a rare opportunity to undertake large-scale wetland restoration, in order to enhance the wetland as a key shorebird refuge, support the conservation of endangered and vulnerable species and create greater landscape scale resilience in the environment.”
Other important habitat modification work is continuing to help restore the wetland back to primarily an open pan mudflat environment. This involves mechanical clearance of invasive vegetation and prescribed burning being coordinated by the National Parks and Wildlife Service SA.
The vegetation being cleared is mostly Melaleuca halmaturorum (salt paperbark), a species which is responsible for encroaching on many wetlands in the region.
The clearance was approved by the Native Vegetation Council.
The restoration and preservation of wetlands is of cultural, spiritual, social and economic significance to the Aboriginal Peoples of the South East. DEW continues to work with the First Nations of the South East to ensure cultural knowledge, values and interests inform and shape project outcomes.
For more information visit the Department for Environment and Water website.
