Saltmarsh Restoration in Narooma
Getting the community together to plant saltmarsh species along the Wagonga Inlet.
Capacity building - LEP23-014-LLC02-4
The issue
Coastal communities across the globe are beginning to face the impacts of climate change, with sea level rise and more frequent, intense weather being just a couple of impacts on these communities. Saltmarshes are one of the ecosystems found in coastal regions in New South Wales, which occupy the high tide zone of coastal lakes and estuaries. They are important not only for habitat and food for fauna, but also for reducing erosion, filtration to maintain water quality, a buffer between water bodies and the land, and sequestering carbon. Climate change isn't the only threat; humans have undervalued saltmarshes for years resulting in impacts from unrestricted stock access, drainage works, reclamation, weed invasion, dumping, pollution, mowing, stormwater runoff and damage from vehicles.
The solution
Over the last few years, Eurobodalla Landcare has been involved with the Wagonga Inlet Living Shoreline (WILS) project - a partnership between Eurobodalla Shire Council, NSW Fisheries and The Nature Conservancy to restore the saltmarsh and oyster reef along the inlet in Narooma. Following the success of the WILS project, a Coast and Estuary grant from NSW Environment and Heritage provided funding for saltmarsh planting in Narooma, to extend the ecological community behind the mangroves.
The impact
Across 6 planting sessions in spring 2025 and autumn 2026, 80 volunteers from Eurobodalla Landcare, ANU Intrepid Landcare and Narooma High School planted 2,000 plants along a further 1000m of Wagonga Inlet. In addition to planting, there was also a focus on education around the significance of saltmarsh, why it's important for communities including Narooma, and why the prevalence and health of saltmarshes have declined over the years. Since eliminating kikuyu and stopping slashing to make space for the native planting, there is a lot of natural regeneration from species such as Tetragonia tetragonioides and Goodenia radicans which are just happy to have some space to grow!
Learnings
It was wonderful to get so many of the local community (and volunteers from further afield!) involved in restoring saltmarsh in Narooma. Whilst planting is a fantastic way to educate, get people involved, and help populate the ground, it was apparent that simply killing the grass and then stopping Council from mowing those patches was enough to allow for natural regeneration! It will be interesting to watch over time how much of the new saltmarsh was planted by us vs how much was natural regeneration, and the success of both types of plants.
For further information on the WILS project, see:
Key facts
- Saltmarsh is listed as an Endangered Ecological Community (EEC) in NSW, which is important for habitat, food, preventing erosion, filtration, and carbon sequestration. Some estuaries in NSW have lost up to 80% of their habitat since 1950.
- Following the success of the Wagonga Inlet Living Shoreline Project, Eurobodalla Shire Council and Eurobodalla Landcare used Coast and Estuary funding to extend the saltmarsh planting in Narooma
- Over spring 2025 and autumn 2026, 80 volunteers planted 2,000 saltmarsh species along 1000m of the Wagonga Inlet.