Is it time to let nature prevail at Queensferry? Photo: The Powell Family, 2025.
By Neil Daly
QUEENSFERRY, Tuesday 9 September, 2025.
The dawn sun was hidden by the menacing dark clouds.
The tide was out.
RMIT’s Centre for Nature Positive Solutions (CNPS) project team emerged from their dual cab ute – they were here to count mangroves.
By about 7.45am they were half way through counting, measuring and inspecting the remaining mangroves from the Blue Carbon project first started in October 2022 and now approaching its conclusion. The scene was reminiscent of my first meeting with the team as I recorded in A chance encounter of the seedling kind.
QUEENSFERRY, Tuesday 9 September, 2025.
The dawn sun was hidden by the menacing dark clouds.
The tide was out.
RMIT’s Centre for Nature Positive Solutions (CNPS) project team emerged from their dual cab ute – they were here to count mangroves.
By about 7.45am they were half way through counting, measuring and inspecting the remaining mangroves from the Blue Carbon project first started in October 2022 and now approaching its conclusion. The scene was reminiscent of my first meeting with the team as I recorded in A chance encounter of the seedling kind.
Counting mangroves before the tide rolls in, Queensferry, 2025. Photos: Neil Daly
While they were still hard at work and the cloud cover persisted, I headed to the Landcare/Bunurong mangrove project at the eastern end of Queensferry.
In January this year, the project team deployed 800 bamboo brush structures ($9 each), planted 3800 mangrove seeds using the John Eddy method and scattered the remaining 2500 seeds within the two plots.
In January this year, the project team deployed 800 bamboo brush structures ($9 each), planted 3800 mangrove seeds using the John Eddy method and scattered the remaining 2500 seeds within the two plots.
From my “visual count”, about half the planted mangroves were surviving. It seems the bamboo structures are providing some protection against the waves and sand is accumulating in and around the plots.
There was no evidence that the scattered seeds had survived; 60 or so of the brush structures had washed away.
As I headed back to the western end of Queensferry, I took in the vista and recalled conversations I’d had over the last four years or so with those who regularly walk along this foreshore.
In some cases, they are not happy with the “scientific meddlers” traipsing through the inshore intertidal zone planting mangroves and churning up the sediment. They point out that the mangroves are simply not growing and its time people stopped interfering with Queensferry’s natural order and left it alone.
Deep in thought, I was suddenly brought back to reality with “Morning”, ending my early morning solitude.
It was Dr Stacey Trevathan-Tackett, the CNPS team leader. Taking a break from the counting activities, Stacey was happy to report on some aspects of the project to date.
The Nature Positive Solutions program had two overarching aims:
Over a two-year period, the team had deployed 60 BESE biodegradable lattice frames and collected some 2500 mangrove seeds. They embedded some seeds in the frames while others were planted using the John Eddy bamboo stake method.
There was no evidence that the scattered seeds had survived; 60 or so of the brush structures had washed away.
As I headed back to the western end of Queensferry, I took in the vista and recalled conversations I’d had over the last four years or so with those who regularly walk along this foreshore.
In some cases, they are not happy with the “scientific meddlers” traipsing through the inshore intertidal zone planting mangroves and churning up the sediment. They point out that the mangroves are simply not growing and its time people stopped interfering with Queensferry’s natural order and left it alone.
Deep in thought, I was suddenly brought back to reality with “Morning”, ending my early morning solitude.
It was Dr Stacey Trevathan-Tackett, the CNPS team leader. Taking a break from the counting activities, Stacey was happy to report on some aspects of the project to date.
The Nature Positive Solutions program had two overarching aims:
- researching and developing (i.e. trial and error) new ways to improve plant establishment in areas of the coastline that are struggling to revegetate on their own; and
- connecting and working with practitioners, other researchers, landowners and community to progress the common goal of coastal wetland restoration.
Over a two-year period, the team had deployed 60 BESE biodegradable lattice frames and collected some 2500 mangrove seeds. They embedded some seeds in the frames while others were planted using the John Eddy bamboo stake method.
Very few mangroves have taken hold since December 2022.
In October 2023, a further 380, nine-month-old seedlings grown in a land-based nursery were planted in modified frames to test if these seedlings could survive the rigours of a sometimes hostile environment.
“We’ve worked in Western Port and Port Phillip Bay in some very diverse environments and have learned a lot about how biodegradable structures can facilitate seed and seedling growth,” Stacey said. “Not surprisingly, what works in one area may not work in another.”
It was now around 9.15am. With the tide on its return journey, the team’s gear loaded into the ute and the mangrove data safely recorded for analysis (their report will be released soon), it was time to call it a day.
It had been an interesting morning. However, given Queensferry’s environmental history, it seemed the situation was far from being resolved.
Queensferry is a low-lying environment. After it was inundated in the 1920s, what remained of the township was abandoned.
In all likelihood the tidal flooding will continue. Even after 25 years of trying to grow mangroves where they once stood prior to the township being established in the 1880s, it seems hand-planted mangroves cannot be grown in sufficient numbers to temper the wave action. The foreshore is eroding at about a metre per year.
The question arises: is what’s left of Queensferry’s infrastructure in need of ongoing protection, or is it time to move on and let nature prevail?
I imagine the landholders will hold on to their marginal land; those undertaking the mangrove projects will want to keep going; some of the locals will continue to express their environmental concerns; and the erosion will go on.
Given the competing interests, I thought it was time I sought a “second opinion”. In an ABC News program Australia's coastal towns are facing major erosion, coastal geomorphologist Professor David Kennedy offered the following view.
"Because coasts naturally erode … the real time when we want to see human intervention is really when we get a situation where we have some sort of human asset, which we can't move." Professor Kennedy said the best solution would be for people not to build infrastructure on the coast and to move further away from beaches to minimise the impact of erosion.
"If we keep maintaining our assets where we exactly want them to be, erosion will get worse into the future, if we don't allow that coast to have that manoeuvrability that it wants to do."
On reflection then, has the time come to leave Queensferry alone and let the ghosts of the past rest in peace or do we plough on?
Somebody has to make the call.
“We’ve worked in Western Port and Port Phillip Bay in some very diverse environments and have learned a lot about how biodegradable structures can facilitate seed and seedling growth,” Stacey said. “Not surprisingly, what works in one area may not work in another.”
It was now around 9.15am. With the tide on its return journey, the team’s gear loaded into the ute and the mangrove data safely recorded for analysis (their report will be released soon), it was time to call it a day.
It had been an interesting morning. However, given Queensferry’s environmental history, it seemed the situation was far from being resolved.
Queensferry is a low-lying environment. After it was inundated in the 1920s, what remained of the township was abandoned.
In all likelihood the tidal flooding will continue. Even after 25 years of trying to grow mangroves where they once stood prior to the township being established in the 1880s, it seems hand-planted mangroves cannot be grown in sufficient numbers to temper the wave action. The foreshore is eroding at about a metre per year.
The question arises: is what’s left of Queensferry’s infrastructure in need of ongoing protection, or is it time to move on and let nature prevail?
I imagine the landholders will hold on to their marginal land; those undertaking the mangrove projects will want to keep going; some of the locals will continue to express their environmental concerns; and the erosion will go on.
Given the competing interests, I thought it was time I sought a “second opinion”. In an ABC News program Australia's coastal towns are facing major erosion, coastal geomorphologist Professor David Kennedy offered the following view.
"Because coasts naturally erode … the real time when we want to see human intervention is really when we get a situation where we have some sort of human asset, which we can't move." Professor Kennedy said the best solution would be for people not to build infrastructure on the coast and to move further away from beaches to minimise the impact of erosion.
"If we keep maintaining our assets where we exactly want them to be, erosion will get worse into the future, if we don't allow that coast to have that manoeuvrability that it wants to do."
On reflection then, has the time come to leave Queensferry alone and let the ghosts of the past rest in peace or do we plough on?
Somebody has to make the call.