Boatharbour Reserve Bush Regeneration
by Grace Funk

The Boatharbour Nature Reserve Project has a decisive aim: to expand the endangered ecological community ‘Lowland Rainforest on Floodplains in the NSW North Coast Bioregion’.

National Parks ranger Keith Close planting a tree at the Boatharbour Nature Reserve Photo: Lisa Walker, DEC

To that end, “National Parks and Wildlife staff and local volunteers have planted a variety of around 2000 native rainforest trees in previously cleared and disturbed areas of the Boatharbour Nature Reserve in the Lismore area. All plants were grown from locally collected seeds, and are endemic to the area”, says Shane Robinson, project manager of the Boatharbour NR Project at the Department of Environment and Conservation.

Bioregions, according the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) “are relatively large land areas characterised by broad, landscape-scale natural features and environmental processes that influence the function of entire ecosystems. They capture the large-scale geographical patterns across Australia. These patterns in the landscape are linked to fauna and flora assemblages and processes at the ecosystem scale … ”

The North Coast Bioregion

The North Coast Bioregion stretches up the east coast of NSW from just north of Newcastle to just inside the Qld border, occupying 7.11 percent of the state.

Rainforest endangered

The ‘Lowland Rainforest on Floodplains’ in the North Coast Bioregion covers less than 1000 hectares, and in the opinion of the NSW Scientific Committee it is “likely to become extinct in nature in NSW”.

“The remaining stands are small and isolated. The small and fragmented nature of these sites places them, as with the stands outside the NPWS estate, at risk of loss of integrity from weed invasion, and other disturbances. Unless the circumstances, and factors threatening its survival or evolutionary development cease to operate, the devastation will continue”, Shane explains.

Weed control, tree maintenance, and interpretative signage

Regeneration in progress Photo: Lisa Walker, DEC

Integral to the Boatharbour NR project was weed control, which was essential to prepare the site for tree planting.

Weed control will continue to ensure that noxious plants will not smother the plantings, which also encourage threatened species of fauna and flora to return to the area.

Tree maintenance was also essential during the warmer periods, particularly in keeping water levels up to the plants during the dry periods following planting.

Interpretative signs were installed to educate the community about the project. The signs “ask visitors to keep to dedicated walking tracks, highlight that the site is a revegetation area, and indicate that the project was sponsored by the National Parks Foundation”, Shane adds.

Once a traditional land

NPWS states the North Coast Bioregion was the traditional land of the Muruwari and Gumbaingirr people, who subsisted in a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. After a mid-nineteenth century of European settlement that included violent clashes and massacres, the bioregion has now become a popular destination for retirees as well as younger people who seek the tranquillity of the resort to that of a busy city lifestyle.

Then, the Big Scrub

The Boatharbour Nature Reserve was a base camp for timber-getters working in the area known as the Big Scrub. Remains of pilings of the old wharf used by riverboats to load the timber are still evident.

Today, the reserve boasts a picnic area, paved with wheelchair-accessible walking track that leads to the reserve’s viewing platform over the junction of Wilson River and Coopers Creeks.

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