The trees – and animals – are returning to a windswept patch near Wonthaggi that was grazed for decades. Photo: Geoff Glare
By Catherine Watson
IN THE space of a month, three different people told me about the miracle unfolding on a windswept patch called West Area. “You should see what the Friends are doing out there,” they said.
They meant the Friends of the Wonthaggi Heathlands and Coastal Reserve, of course, so one recent morning I joined long-time president Geoff Glare and secretary Anne Looney to see the miracle for myself.
I soon understood why this is such a challenging site. A hot northerly wind tore at our hats and snatched away our words. If it's not the hot northerlies, it's the icy south-westerlies straight off Antarctica. Most years we experience the beastly easterlies; this spring it was those relentless westerlies.
IN THE space of a month, three different people told me about the miracle unfolding on a windswept patch called West Area. “You should see what the Friends are doing out there,” they said.
They meant the Friends of the Wonthaggi Heathlands and Coastal Reserve, of course, so one recent morning I joined long-time president Geoff Glare and secretary Anne Looney to see the miracle for myself.
I soon understood why this is such a challenging site. A hot northerly wind tore at our hats and snatched away our words. If it's not the hot northerlies, it's the icy south-westerlies straight off Antarctica. Most years we experience the beastly easterlies; this spring it was those relentless westerlies.
West Area is a patch of land few of us know – 16 hectares on the western edge of Wonthaggi, between the Yallock Bulluk Marine and Coastal Park and the Desal Ecological Reserve. It’s public land but had been grazed for many years. Once the stock were removed, when the desal plant was built, it became a kind of no man’s land, a potential source of weeds moving from one reserve to the other.
Local environmental groups, including the Friends, South Gippsland Conservation Society, Wonthaggi Seed Bank and Nursery, and Cape Paterson Coastal Plains Landcare saw the possibility of repairing the site and stitching it into the patchwork of reserves.
Local environmental groups, including the Friends, South Gippsland Conservation Society, Wonthaggi Seed Bank and Nursery, and Cape Paterson Coastal Plains Landcare saw the possibility of repairing the site and stitching it into the patchwork of reserves.
West Area Block taken from Lower Powlett Road showing remnant vegetation, September 2013
Geoff and Anne insist it has always been a team project. They pay a special tribute to Beth Banks and Terri Allen and her seed collectors. “We use their plants and now they get seed stock from West Area.”
Danny Drummond, legendary Parks ranger, has lent his wisdom for decades and still turns up long after leaving Parks Victoria. Two spots in West Area are informally named for him: Danny’s Track, from the road reserve up to Danny’s Seat, though the “view to the hills” from the seat has since disappeared behind growing trees.
While it’s true that dozens of people have been involved over the years, everyone else points back to Geoff and Anne. They’ve been here since day one, in 2011, and they’re still here, 14 years later.
“They have been the driving force,” says Danny Drummond. “Nothing can diminish the work they’ve put into it. It’s been a massive achievement.”
While it’s true that dozens of people have been involved over the years, everyone else points back to Geoff and Anne. They’ve been here since day one, in 2011, and they’re still here, 14 years later.
“They have been the driving force,” says Danny Drummond. “Nothing can diminish the work they’ve put into it. It’s been a massive achievement.”
This is difficult terrain. Look around and you can see plenty of stunted growth and wind-pruned trees. Anne mourns each lost tree but she also celebrates those that flourish, and those that merely hang in there. A hint of green gives hope. If they can nurse the banksias through the first few years, they suddenly take off in about year five.
They use a limited palette – just 23 species across two ecological vegetation classes: Coast Banksia Woodland and Coast Dune Scrub Mosaic. Banksias are dying all along the coast and they hope to reverse that here.
They use a limited palette – just 23 species across two ecological vegetation classes: Coast Banksia Woodland and Coast Dune Scrub Mosaic. Banksias are dying all along the coast and they hope to reverse that here.
Like everyone involved in nature repair, they are subject to a multitude of challenges – not just droughts and flooding rains but surprise late frosts and hailstorms.
The risks are magnified out here on the exposed sandy ridges. This year, with the aid of a $2000 grant from Bass Coast Shire Council, they planted 650 tubestock. They timed it to perfection, planting in late August, after the frost period and before a forecast dry spring.
Just a few days later, unseasonal frosts burned the soft new growth. Now, three months on, most of the plants have recovered, helped by the unseasonal late spring rains. That’s weather for you!
They are learning all the time. Geoff, a former science teacher, has the orderly mind you’d expect: he can tell you the planting date of every grove, what went wrong and what worked.
The risks are magnified out here on the exposed sandy ridges. This year, with the aid of a $2000 grant from Bass Coast Shire Council, they planted 650 tubestock. They timed it to perfection, planting in late August, after the frost period and before a forecast dry spring.
Just a few days later, unseasonal frosts burned the soft new growth. Now, three months on, most of the plants have recovered, helped by the unseasonal late spring rains. That’s weather for you!
They are learning all the time. Geoff, a former science teacher, has the orderly mind you’d expect: he can tell you the planting date of every grove, what went wrong and what worked.
Community planting, June 2014
When the project began in 2011, volunteers and contractors direct-seeded the site. Later they switched to tubestock, putting in up to 2000 plants a year but losing as many as 75 per cent of them.
They changed tack: fewer plants, more care. The old standby of milk cartons, plastic and bamboo stakes couldn’t withstand the wind or browsing animals – kangaroos, wallabies and especially wombats, “the bulldozers of the bush”, as Geoff calls them.
“We’ve learned that the quality of the guards is as important as the quality of the plants,” he says.
High-quality corflute guards with hardwood stakes reversed the survival equation. Now they plant around 750 a year, with survival rates as high as 90 per cent. The staging of planting also avoids the mass senescing of trees in the future. You don't want the whole lot to age at the same time.
They changed tack: fewer plants, more care. The old standby of milk cartons, plastic and bamboo stakes couldn’t withstand the wind or browsing animals – kangaroos, wallabies and especially wombats, “the bulldozers of the bush”, as Geoff calls them.
“We’ve learned that the quality of the guards is as important as the quality of the plants,” he says.
High-quality corflute guards with hardwood stakes reversed the survival equation. Now they plant around 750 a year, with survival rates as high as 90 per cent. The staging of planting also avoids the mass senescing of trees in the future. You don't want the whole lot to age at the same time.
It was slow going for many years, but the place is really starting to move now, with the early plantings helping to protect the new ones and natural recruitment occurring.
Swamp paperbark thickets have expanded dramatically since cattle were removed in 2007. Green “doilies” of bower spinach and seaberry saltbush are growing under the banksias and eucalypts, courtesy of seeds delivered by birds resting in the semi-mature trees.
Swamp paperbark thickets have expanded dramatically since cattle were removed in 2007. Green “doilies” of bower spinach and seaberry saltbush are growing under the banksias and eucalypts, courtesy of seeds delivered by birds resting in the semi-mature trees.
All these are the signs of an ecosystem repairing itself.
And the animals are returning. You have to watch your footing through the long grass because there are wombat tunnels everywhere. Anne points out one under a clump of lomandra, complete with what she calls a “thatched roof”.
And the animals are returning. You have to watch your footing through the long grass because there are wombat tunnels everywhere. Anne points out one under a clump of lomandra, complete with what she calls a “thatched roof”.
“We love our wombats, even though they wreck the guards.”
Geoff Glare
An echidna buries his nose in the ground as we pass by and we can see where a mob of roos has rested.
Last year they spotted a koala, the ultimate seal of approval. And the number of bird species increases year by year.
As if on cue, we see a pair of wedgies riding the currents way above us, harassed by ravens. A Latham’s Snipe rises as we near the wetland. They have seen blue-winged parrots here and have no doubt they will one day see orange-bellied parrots, one of Australia’s rarest birds.
Anne says more people are now wandering through West Area – families, walkers peeling off the track from the desal, lone photographers hoping for birdlife. “It’s lovely to see. Even though we’re planting here, it feels very natural.”
They visit the site between working bees, checking guards, grubbing out thistles, weeding around the new plants. It’s not all work. Sometimes they just stop and take it all in.
As if on cue, we see a pair of wedgies riding the currents way above us, harassed by ravens. A Latham’s Snipe rises as we near the wetland. They have seen blue-winged parrots here and have no doubt they will one day see orange-bellied parrots, one of Australia’s rarest birds.
Anne says more people are now wandering through West Area – families, walkers peeling off the track from the desal, lone photographers hoping for birdlife. “It’s lovely to see. Even though we’re planting here, it feels very natural.”
They visit the site between working bees, checking guards, grubbing out thistles, weeding around the new plants. It’s not all work. Sometimes they just stop and take it all in.
Australasian Grebe, West Area, October 2023. Photo: Geoff Glare
“It’s a tapestry,” Geoff says. “You look at the public plantings that have gone on in the rifle range and the heathland and here's an opportunity to bring back something, even though it won't be exactly the same as it would have been.”
“I love seeing the plants grow and being out here with the animals,” Anne says. “This is our happy place.
We spend some time imagining what West Area will look like in decades to come. I ask what keeps them working for a future they won’t see.
Anne doesn’t hesitate. “If we don't look towards the future then what are we leaving for the next generations?”
“I love seeing the plants grow and being out here with the animals,” Anne says. “This is our happy place.
We spend some time imagining what West Area will look like in decades to come. I ask what keeps them working for a future they won’t see.
Anne doesn’t hesitate. “If we don't look towards the future then what are we leaving for the next generations?”
White-bellied Sea Eagle, West Area October 2024. Photo: Geoff Glare