Dam project offers chance to restore native ecosystems

4 July 2018

While a project to raise Clarrie Hall Dam is still in its early planning and land acquisition stage, it offers Council the opportunity to trial a range of vegetation restoration actions to regenerate lands purchased for the bigger dam.

From the lands purchased, Council has identified a large parcel it will establish as a restoration trial site for benchmarking the success of revegetation efforts and the return of native fauna to land previously cleared for cattle grazing. Revegetating land adjacent to the dam will complement the existing catchment buffer zone.

In establishing the restoration trial site, Council will measure fauna activity on the property prior to any revegetation works being undertaken and then monitor changes in fauna activity over time.

The trail restoration property has about 54 hectares of advanced regrowth forest, including a number of threatened flora and fauna species. Council will prioritise weed management within threatened species habitat to assist in the conservation of these species. In other areas, various restoration techniques would be implemented to promote natural regeneration. In some instances, where a high level of intervention is warranted, tubestock would be planted.

Council’s aim in restoring the trial site is to recreate the mixed eucalypt open forest that would have existed prior to the property being cleared.

The regeneration of the characteristic Brush Box, Pink Bloodwood, Tallowwood, Grey Ironbark, White Mahogany and Grey Gum will signal the reestablishment of native vegetation communities and will assist in stabilising soil in the water supply catchment and improve habitat values for native fauna, such as glossy black cockatoos, koala, forest owls and insectivorous bats.

Restoration of the site also will improve connectivity of vegetation corridors in the Doon Doon catchment to assist wildlife movement and genetic transfer.

Over coming years, the data collected from the restoration site may be valuable in evidencing the success of the various regeneration methodologies which, in turn, will enable successful and cost-effective approaches to restoring other properties in the catchment and further afield.

The Restoration Strategy for the trial site is available in the Document Library on this site.