Creative Creek Flat Connectivity
From erosion gully remediation to whole farm connectivity project
Capacity building - LP003-026-GL2
The issue
The Wallamba River catchment is the most heavily cleared catchment of the Wallis Lake watershed, and the Khoribakh Creek catchment is no exception, with creek flats mostly devoid of trees. Raylene Steptoe’s horse stud at Dyers Crossing inherited an almost treeless property, with small remnants on the roadside of the bordering lane and lonely paddock trees indicating that it was once a Riverflat Eucalypt-Paperbark forest. The property is crossed by an ephemeral gully that suffered a severe erosion event in 2024. Initial treatment with soil infilling and seeding with millet and other summer pasture was showing early signs of re-eroding with relatively minor rain events.
The solution
Raylene sought assistance from Landcare via the local Wallamba Landcare Group. We planned to turn the gully area into a corridor of native vegetation traversing the property from East to West, providing habitat and connectivity benefits as well as stabilising the soil. We sourced a good stock of local provenance trees, shrubs and groundcovers from the MidCoast Council nurseries, with the assistance of Council’s Koala Safe Spaces project funded by the Environment Department – Raylene’s place is in the Kiwarrak Area of Regional Koala Significance and was historically the natural home of Koala food favourites like Swamp Mahogany and Cabbage Gum. The bulk of the corridor planting was done during a community field day in Autumn 2025 with plenty of keen volunteer assistance.
The impact
The corridor plantings held up well during subsequent flood events over the unusually wet winter of 2025, and Raylene has been inspired to expand habitat improvement. She hosted a Ground Habitat Furnishing Field Day through the Private Conservation Matters program, where various woody debris was added to the habitat corridor. Plantings are being expanded in the Autumn and Winter of 2025, with 38 habitat/shade “island” stepping stone clusters being planted across the property. Motion sensor camera monitoring of the main corridor has been set up.
Learnings
Co-planting trees with Lomandra enhanced stability of plantings in erosive zone
Woody debris showing evidence of slowing water flow
Enhancing habitat features on farms can be a win-win-win for grazing management, flood/erosion management and wildlife.
Key facts
- Initial planting of 800 plants into 280m corridor
- 2 field days in 2025, attendance 42
- 240 plants in 38 habitat islands