By Ed Thexton

GRAND Final Day 2026, and at the Inverloch Surf Beach – the beach with the fastest rate of coastal erosion in the recorded history of Victoria – community volunteers join the South Gippsland Conservation Society and the Inverloch Surf Life Saving Club.

A year ago, we ordered from local nurseries 20,000 quality plants of dune-stabilising indigenous species.

In 2013, with erosion increasing, the Society initiated the Inverloch Coastal Resilience Project.  After over a decade of action and advocacy, and the loss of 12 hectares of dune and its diverse ecosystem, now partially replaced by inlet dredging and pumping sand back onto the beach, the first habitat reinstatement planting awaits. 

The Inverloch dune is no ordinary plant establishment environment. It is a threatened place: sand, sun and the winds of Bass Strait, plus beach goers. There’s a reason why, globally, sandy beaches are devoid of vegetation. They are the transition zone between the flowering plant dominated terrestrial realm and the aquatic realm where algae thrive. It’s not because plant seed doesn’t land there or even germinate, it’s because the environment is too hostile to support plant establishment and growth. 

Inverloch’s reinstated beach created by the dredged, saltwater slurry pumped sand is no different.  Because of the mass movement and the limited time that the transported sand has had to consolidate, this summer is likely to be quite an extreme dune environment.  Infertile, dry sand and hot, fierce, salt- and sand-laden winds that bash, burn and bury; saltwater spray that damages; and at the extreme, waves that can wash everything away do not create an ideal planting location. That is why our plantings will be restricted to the dune side beach margin.

On this planting day, we are following established horticultural and ecological principles to meet the critical needs of the plants and help them to survive. We need the right plant in the right place at the right time. 

Except the timing is not quite right because we’re planting a bit late in the season. Also, a Super El Nino is forecast for this summer and the dune is already dry. The plants will be up against the forces of an extreme climate and the relentless response from the mighty Bass Strait. We need to create an environment where plants not only survive and thrive but also reproduce, sending up new shoots and runners and flowering to set seeds. We can do this by meeting the plants’ need for water, nutrients and protection. 

On Inverloch Surf Beach, at this time, we have to be careful where we plant, and the best place to start is within the surrounds of the Surf Club.  It is a focal point of the beach, where the plants will benefit from the ongoing oversight of club members. Crucially the plants will help trap and hold the windblown sand.

At the planting site we place brush to reduce wind speed and deter foot traffic. Because it is so late to be planting on beach sand before the summer, we also install an irrigation system. When planting, we soak our plants and add a bio-activator; we then add fertiliser and super-absorbent water-holding material. 

We plant at high density with a variety of species: succulents, grasses, sedges and shrubs, working on the basis that the mass of plants growing together will be mutually supportive.  

To help the plants survive the planting process we remove many of them from their plastic tubes. For plants with root systems too frail to have the tube removed before planting we take special care. We stress to the volunteers the need to plant deep. Our irrigation system pours 70,000 litres onto the dry sand to enable planters to make holes without the sides caving in. 

In a few hours, on a wet, cold and windy Grand Final Day, 80 volunteers planted 2000 nursery-raised forestry tubes of a dozen main species into about 500 square metres of dredged, pumped and placed sand, located in two blocks left and right of the five-year-old planting on the beach side of the Inverloch Surf Lifesaving Club building.  

To successfully complete a mass planting in an extreme environment at an extreme time on a popular public beach we asked everybody for help. We have drawn on the experience of staff of Phillip Island Nature Parks and Bass Coast Shire Council, and prevailed on the goodwill and resources of the volunteers of the Inverloch Surf Life Saving Club and the Inverloch Tourism Association, as well as our own SGCS members. The BBQ hosted by the Surf Club was much appreciated by all, and a great way to conclude the day’s activities.

Never has a South Gippsland Conservation Society planting needed to be monitored so intensely. It is the duty of each of those who planted to recruit a friend and then repair to the Inverloch Surf Life Saving Club balcony at least once a week to gaze down on those plants, out to sea and into the setting sun. 

Ed Thexton is president of the South Gippsland Conservation Society.