Bass Coast Landcare Network experiments with growing mangrove seeds protected by the bamboo brush structures. Queensferry, January 2025. Photos: Neil Daly By Neil Daly
IN MY article The mangrove challenge continues, I expressed my disappointment that the key stakeholders had walked away from a recent mangrove restoration symposium without any plan to meet again.
Concerned that the collegial approach had faltered, I sent a copy of the article to each stakeholder inviting them to comment on the key issues I’d raised. See “Stakeholder Issues”.
Western Port Seagrass Partnership, the University of Melbourne, Bass Coast Landcare Network and the Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation presented a range of constructive comments, including that a scientific study was needed to assess the environmental limitations of both mangroves and saltmarsh in Western Port.
IN MY article The mangrove challenge continues, I expressed my disappointment that the key stakeholders had walked away from a recent mangrove restoration symposium without any plan to meet again.
Concerned that the collegial approach had faltered, I sent a copy of the article to each stakeholder inviting them to comment on the key issues I’d raised. See “Stakeholder Issues”.
Western Port Seagrass Partnership, the University of Melbourne, Bass Coast Landcare Network and the Western Port Biosphere Reserve Foundation presented a range of constructive comments, including that a scientific study was needed to assess the environmental limitations of both mangroves and saltmarsh in Western Port.
However, they shied away from asking the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) to audit the situation and table an environment impact assessment. Instead, they opted to continue the self-assessment approach; engage a PhD student to take on the task; or ask Melbourne Water to present a strategic plan.
DEECA, for its part, said it would expect to have a role in assessing restoration activities but it would not undertake an audit in its own right. It is a pity the other stakeholders did not enter into the discussion and it seems the fragmented approach is set to continue.
If so, we run the risk of continuing the practice of spending grant and government monies on a range of “mangrove activities” along parts of Western Port’s eastern foreshore currently devoid of naturally growing mangrove stands. The end result is that after 20 or more years of trying to redress this situation, these projects have failed to deliver a practical means of growing mangroves in sufficient numbers to reduce foreshore erosion.
Conversely in this area, mangroves will grow in embayments or other sheltered locations or where they are protected by existing mangrove stands. In these situations, they are curbing erosion and increasing Western Port’s “blue carbon” capturing capacity.
DEECA, for its part, said it would expect to have a role in assessing restoration activities but it would not undertake an audit in its own right. It is a pity the other stakeholders did not enter into the discussion and it seems the fragmented approach is set to continue.
If so, we run the risk of continuing the practice of spending grant and government monies on a range of “mangrove activities” along parts of Western Port’s eastern foreshore currently devoid of naturally growing mangrove stands. The end result is that after 20 or more years of trying to redress this situation, these projects have failed to deliver a practical means of growing mangroves in sufficient numbers to reduce foreshore erosion.
Conversely in this area, mangroves will grow in embayments or other sheltered locations or where they are protected by existing mangrove stands. In these situations, they are curbing erosion and increasing Western Port’s “blue carbon” capturing capacity.
South of the Grantville pier, a natural ‘blue carbon’ ecosystem is expanding. March 2025.
So somewhere along the way, “somebody” has to determine the primary reason for trying to grow mangroves along the eastern foreshore arm. Once defined, this will help direct efforts to planting mangroves in areas where they will grow. A corollary of this approach is that it may open up further development of other nature-based coastal protection measures such as saltmarsh and supratidal forests more suited to the areas under discussion.
In my article A chance encounter of the seedling kind, I outlined a mangrove restoration business plan that included reference to the Accounting for Nature Framework, developed by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.
In my article A chance encounter of the seedling kind, I outlined a mangrove restoration business plan that included reference to the Accounting for Nature Framework, developed by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.
They state “You can’t manage what you haven’t measured … Without robust measurement and monitoring of environmental condition, nature cannot be meaningfully integrated into decision-making. To inform action, the environment must be measured in a way that is scientifically rigorous, repeatable, fit-for-purpose, and applicable at any scale and location. Nature needs a common unit so that the condition of diverse environmental assets can be consistently understood, compared, and communicated across different places, times, and scales by investors, policymakers and other stakeholders.”
If one considers this advice to be reasonable, it may follow that it would be wise to immediately commission a credentialed body to undertake an audit of mangrove projects along the eastern foreshore arm.
It could provide the key stakeholders and the government with a much needed independent and scientific assessment of the situation and hopefully, help them deliver a well-defined business plan that will dovetail with other initiatives such as the Casey Coastal Framework.
This framework “aims to enhance the resilience of the region’s coastal areas to changing climatic conditions. It seeks to provide direction, strategic justification, adaptation recommendations, guide change and inform decision making on how to respond to increasing coastal hazard risks.”
In summary, I believe we need an audit but it seems others may not – what do you think?
If one considers this advice to be reasonable, it may follow that it would be wise to immediately commission a credentialed body to undertake an audit of mangrove projects along the eastern foreshore arm.
It could provide the key stakeholders and the government with a much needed independent and scientific assessment of the situation and hopefully, help them deliver a well-defined business plan that will dovetail with other initiatives such as the Casey Coastal Framework.
This framework “aims to enhance the resilience of the region’s coastal areas to changing climatic conditions. It seeks to provide direction, strategic justification, adaptation recommendations, guide change and inform decision making on how to respond to increasing coastal hazard risks.”
In summary, I believe we need an audit but it seems others may not – what do you think?
Mangroves growing naturally at the eastern end of Queensferry with the Landcare project in the background, April 2025.
Stakeholder Issues
- Given the many mangrove planting activities that have taken place over the last 20 years or so along Western Port’s eastern foreshore, should DEECA be asked to audit the situation and present an environment impact assessment of this work?
- In exposed areas, wave action is taking its toll on the mangrove seeds and seedlings being planted. From season to season, the mangrove retention rate is less than 2%. Is the solution a series of steel cages filled with shells and rocks 100 metres offshore?
- How much longer can the key players keep experimenting with small-scale mangrove projects? Until there is a large-scale approach, there is no means of determining if mangroves are the solution to arresting erosion along the eastern arm of Western Port.
- Knowing that the mangrove attrition rate is lower in sheltered areas, should the emphasis now turn to growing mangroves in these environments thus increasing Western Port’s carbon capture potential? This is also a way to successfully involve the community in meaningful mangrove planting activities.
- Has the “Nature-based Coastal Defences” project at Grantville, Jam Jerrup and Lang Lang lived up to expectations? If not, is it time to remove the concrete pods?
- Has the time come to forego the mangrove dream and concentrate on encouraging and developing saltmarsh and wetland environments along the low-lying areas of Western Port’s eastern foreshore?
- Who should take control of the situation? There appears to be no accountability and the next generation deserves better than just inheriting the current grant-driven piecemeal approach.
- Will the predicted sea level rise of 0.8m by 2100 negate the efforts to rectify the environmental problems confronting Western Port’s shoreline communities?