Good Intentions, Unintended Consequences
Since 2015, Swellnet has published a series of articles on the damage caused by marram grass. An introduced species, marram was planted to stabilise shifting sand dunes, which it does, yet it also does many other things that only came to light afterwards.
The following is a case study of marram grass, how it changed a dune system, and the surf in front of it.
Just a few hours north of Sydney lies a quiet corner of the coast that many surfers will be familiar with. It sits on a promontory that juts east into the Tasman Sea, making it a magnet for any swell arriving from the south around to the north. The semi-isolated hamlet of Seal Rocks has long been a rite of passage for surfers from Sydney and beyond.
For Sydney surfers, it's close enough for a weekend jaunt but also far enough away to feel like a proper road trip. It offers camping, fishing, and surfing on pristine beaches where the thought of what lurks beneath electrifies even small wave sessions.
Just beyond Seal Rocks, where the bitumen road turns to dust, lies Treachery Camp. 'Treach' has basic camping facilities - though it also has new upgraded cabins - located in a naturally beautiful environment. The camp sits just behind the dunes that front onto Treachery Beach with a Melaleuca forest found deep in the back reaches. The beauty about Treach is that it's offshore in the summer nor'easter, while also sucking in all available south swell, the combination serving up A-frame peaks more often than not.
Jon Brown is the current manager of the camp. Jon's grandfather, John (Jack) Henry Brown, acquired the land from the original land-holder in 1964. It was part of the NSW Government's Returned Soldiers Settlement Act, which was brought in following World War I and extended after World War II offering Crown Land at discounted rates to soldiers who served overseas.
Jon is now the third generation of his family to manage Treachery Camp since it's belonged to the Brown family. My own experience with Treachery is but a fraction of this time, but still, I've got many memories of pumping surf tucked away in the corner of the beach. However, those classic days have become less frequent over the past half a decade.
Why so?
The reason becomes clear when checking the surf from the 'lookout' at the top of the hill...
The current view from the lookout dune and the bush tunnel down to the beach
Treachery Beach is open to both southerly swell and the prevailing southerly winds, the combination of which have created an expansive coastal dune system that extends over 300m from the beach towards the campsite. One back dune pushes even deeper inland and right onto the perimeters of the campsite.
During the 1990's this back dune started to encroach on the campsite at a rate of 1-1.5m/year. So, driven by good intentions, Jon's grandparents enlisted the help of Dune Care and got busy planting various species of vegetation across the dune system to stabilise the sand and stop it moving any further onto their property.
The chosen species included marram grass, an introduced species which is highly effective at propagating across sand dunes, trapping the sand, and stabilising the system. Just what the Browns wanted.
Similar revegetation techniques were used by sand mining companies following rutile mining operations up and down the East Coast, with one such mine operating down the beach to the west-southwest, on the boundary of the Brown's property in the 1970's.
The problem with marram, however, is it does what it's supposed to do, and more. It will propagate and stabilise a dune system, but it will also be detrimental to the local ecosystem, pushing out natives like spinifex.
Post-Dune Care work in the 1990s: Note the planted rows at middle left, marram grass in the foreground, freshwater lagoon middle right, and of course the pumping A-frame
When marram grass takes hold of a beach, the dunes become higher and steeper than those covered by native spinifex due to its clumping, heaped nature. Spinifex spreads out more evenly across the dune system and creeps into hollows, creating a more uniform system. These higher, steeper dunes are at increased risk to erosion and blowouts and result in large scale scarping which then rebounds the incoming swell energy back into the nearshore zone.
From a surfer's point of view, marram traps more sand above the tide line at the expense of sand below it, meaning banks are generally deeper, plus the steeper beach profile makes for increased backwash, all of which deteriorates surfing amenity. Sand availability is limited and wave quality diminished at locations where marram grass dominates the dune system.
Generalised profile of a foredune containing marram and spinifex. Marram produces a steeper, more heaped profile (Source: Dune Restoration Trust of New Zealand)
While initially celebrated for its stabilisation capabilities and in use since the 1970s, it wasn't until late in the century that coastal authorities to realise the damage that marram causes. From being actively planted through the 1990s, coastal managers witnessed marram out-muscle native species, adversely impact the natural dune biodiversity, and also alter the beach profiles. Since the early 2000s, marram has been classified as invasive and it's now discouraged from use in dune restoration activities across Australia.
When the marram was planted at Treachery in the mid-90's it quickly did the job it was supposed to do, preventing the dune system from encroaching on the camp site. The Brown family and Dune Care ceased the dune stabilisation program around fifteen years ago, but the marram had created a foundation for further growth of vegetation growth. The spread across the system is clear to see in the satellite imagery at the end of this article.
While my personal experience of Treachery surf checks date back just over a decade, photos from earlier show how successful the transformation of the entire dune system has been, even though the most rapid changes have occurred in the past ten years.
Usually a quick walk to the lookout tree and one step up would give you a good overview out the front and in the corner, but if you wanted to scope the whole beach, you'd only have to walk another 75 metres or so along the track on top of the main sand dune. On confirmation of pumping A-frames, the walking paths down through the dunes would provide additional views of the surf in front of you.
At left, surf check circa 2010 with vegetation increasing but still a clear view, and at right, the beach in the 1970s
What now confronts eager surfers is a barrier of thick coastal shrub, metres high and blocking any view of the ocean whatsoever, let alone the surf.
Beyond the marram grass doing the initial stabilising, native wattle and tea tree started to establish, followed by banksias and finally eucalypts. The regent bowerbird along with honeyeasters helped propagate seed, with fresh water provided by a small lagoon sitting between the foredune and backdune.
The whole upper part of the dune is now impenetrable while lower parts are heavily vegetated, leaving the frontal dune system with a thin ribbon of native spinifex.There is now far less exchange of sand between the beach and the surf zone.
From Jon's accounts, and my own personal experience, the impact on the sand banks and quality of surf has been to the detriment as there's less sitting out in the surf zone. Owing to south swell exposure, the banks at Treachery have always shifted around, yet the amount of quality surf days have dropped away considerably. A once reliable go-to spot in summer has now become more fickle.
Such is the density of the new vegetation, Jon and his family concede that only a really intense (hot burn) fire would be enough to at least get access and see the dune again - but the fire would most likely take the camp with it.
Satellite imagery of the region from Yagon to the west and Lighthouse Beach to the east show the dune systems being engulfed between 1990 through 2020. The largest differences have been seen through the last two decades.
Tellingly, the sand blowouts at the eastern end of Lighthouse Beach haven't changed at all, due to the lack of dune restoration works on that beach.
Satellite imagery 1990 vs 2022, using the vegetation index overlay. Note the lack of change at the east end of Lighthouse Beach (Source: Landsat)
There's not much than can be done from here besides walking down through the tunnels of vegetation to the surf and taking notes regarding what to do and what not to do with future dune restoration activities. That being, the continued planting of native spinifex while avoiding marram grass at all costs. This is the only choice for dune systems to remain in a more natural state.
A big thank you goes out to the greater Brown family from Treachery Camp, especially Jon for digging through the old photo archives.
Treachery Beach now: A heavily vegetated dune system with spinifex on the frontal dune (Photo: Braden Leppan)
Read our 2015 article on the effects of marram grass here: Damned Marram: Not All Grass Is Good For Your Surfing
Comments
Great article. Never knew that sand dune vegetation could influence surf quality!
It definitely does! I've noticed that places used to gather sand from storm water run-off through the dunes and would create perfect peaks all up along a relatively straight beach (Check old photos of the Perth area). The creation of large apartment buildings, restaurants and the 'dune preservation' activities (Although they have great intentions) tend to negatively impact (from a surfers standpoint) the way sand is moved around.
April 1974: "Part of a sand-drift area at Mona Vale which is being stabilized with marram grass by Warringah Shire Council. The Soil Conservation Service prepared plans and specifications to assist Council in the overall project."
Same at Freshwater. The surf club used to sit in the middle of a sand desert. Now it's half buried by the dune. There's a 10 ft drop off the dune at the northern end by the pipes and similar at the southern end by the ramp as the sand just continues to pile up there. Every couple of years recently they have had to redo the pathway fences as they get buried under the ever-steepening dune. Crazy to see the changes.
A similar thing has happened on a "Sand Blow" Dune system up at a local beach North of Coffs.
One day National Parks decided that to prevent naturally occurring erosion they would reestablish & plant out the affected area. They also decided to vegetate, with Marram along with other species, the entire sand blow/dune area which was approx 250m long by 50m wide without any thought that this area naturally carried sand both North and South in relative seasonal winds.
Erosion is now occurring at other parts of the beach North of this area and the banks at the back beach, which in summer after the Nor' Easters would be on fire pre stuff up, has never been the same.
I was going to bring up this same exact beach as an example too. The winter southerlies would line the point on the front beach and the northerlies would make amazing banks at backy.
The dune had a midden and was a gathering point for people who knows how long. Then dune care come along and fuck up the whole thing for no apparent reason. I have no idea what they were trying to achieve.
Let’s hope that articles like this one spur more conversations and maybe then councils will start to get surfers involved in decisions about the state of our beaches.
SmcBride ........... ;)
I've gotten my hands on the report National Parks engaged a consultant from "Centre for Coastal Management" to undertake to resolve a small section of erosion on Backy side. The report states that the Sand blow bypass system plays a major role in sand movement and in the preservation of the existing morphology of the beaches. Summary - fix said section and "no action should be taken that could lead to a significant reduction in the sand movement through the blowout."
National parks and dune care took it upon themselves to ignore the report and to vegetate the entire area, leaving a 1.2m wide access track.
Apparently word around town is that the excuse was to stop vehicles driving over the dunes, which could have been done by other mechanisms.
National parks have been approached and apparently a new report was to be done, albeit to do with sand loss and erosion on main beach, been over a year since I've last heard anything.
Wow.
Natio Parks and Dune Care are magnets for Scott Morrison-esque low level sociopaths who assume areas as their own little fiefdom. They live to curate the landscape into a frozen diorama representing their personal interpretation of how the world should exist. Nature and contrasting opinion be damned.
If anyone or anything disagrees or won’t comply with this subjective reformation of nature then it should be removed, denied access and/or poisoned into submission.
Many times, NPWS and Dune Care have been forced to act as natives such as spinifex have been destroyed due to 4WD activity or inordinate amounts of foot traffic.
My old boy has history on the MNC stretching back a while, and some of my earliest beach memories are from around there too, and I can recall 4WDs tearing up beaches because they could. Closer to home, I can also recall before the copper logs went in and the foredunes barren of vegetation because of summer foot traffic (lots of period sources saying the same from elsewhere).
There's also the example of the Kurnell Dunes, which may surprise people that they weren't always at Kurnell; they migrated there after the vegetation at Elouera and Wanda was removed.
This is important to understand. Oftentimes the authorities act AFTER humans have already tramelled a place. It may not be you doing the tramelling, but it happens, and it's important to understand this otherwise we're doomed to repeat it.
To be clear: though a low level cover, spinifex won't survive areas where 4WDs go and where foot traffic is unimpeded.
The libertarian mindset of 'I'll walk wherever I want' will destroy natural dunes quicker than marram will swallow them.
Perhaps you can come check out some of their excellent work around here.
Indiscriminate helicopter poison spraying. Liberal application of poison every where you walk with bare feet. Coppers logs strewn for hundreds of metres in areas that might have seen a single 4WD every couple of years. Poles linked together with wire for vast stretches of beach below the King tide line, which then become a treacherous tangle of shit in the surf zone or piles of rubbish on the beach when they are uprooted by a typical storm system.
Denying access in areas of traditional access in one place whilst bulldozing tracks into virgin bush elsewhere because of some management plan someone’s dreamt up to fill hours in the day and keep the work crew busy. Star pickets and danger tape erected along natural inclines because the Earth is too dangerous apparently and everything must have sharp edges removed for human consumption. Elevated walkways and tar footpaths instead of discrete sandy tracks. Blazing beautiful bush into vast tarred or gravel car parks after they’ve bulldozed roads into an area, promoted the fuck out of it and then justify it as accomodating demand….demand which they’ve created.
Signs, signs and more fucken signs. Interpretive signage because the world is nothing more than a museum and heaven help people having to enjoy beauty without having a sign despoil the view. Can’t have interested people going home and researching shit themselves…got to power feed stats and facts into them in situ even if it destroys what they came their for.
Natio are profit generating amusement park workers instead of unimposing custodians. Dune dare are insufferable joiners who need to inflict their control issues on everything around them.
If it was private business instead of government agency and volunteers they’d be sued out of existence.
There’s a dune care mob who has adopted the sand dunes out front of my house and who regularly turn up to spray poison everywhere. When I ask why they’re spraying toxic shit which will probably make everything crook, including wildlife and myself, they tell me they do it because pulled weeds out by hand is hard work! So they poison everything in order to compel the bush to bend to their personal taste. Go spray poison around your own backyard cnts.
The NPWS have plundered some of my favourite areas in the name of progress, so I'm not going to defend them at every instance, however on this very issue - dune planting - it's worth trying to understand motivations rather than throw around wild accusations.
If, in a hypothetical world, marram was removed from the Aussie environment and replaced again with spinifex, much of the East Coast's dune systems would still need management systems to mitigate human damage.
You might not like it, but that's too bad. Spinifex-covered dunes won't survive indiscriminate foot traffic - leave alone 4WD - especially in urban areas and holiday hotpsots.
It's why marram got planted in the first place. Wanna repeat the issue and end up back where we are? A failure to understand motivation will do that.
Fact is, humans have an imprint that isn't always in balance with the natural world - especially around heavily-populated areas. If you want laissez-faire access to all coastline then I don't want to see the world you'd end up with. I'd prefer some push back from authorities, even if at times they get it wrong, as they have here with marram.
But the greater project is refining knowledge along the way. Appreciating mistakes and learning from them.
Stunet, I agree with comments from both your posts above. Maybe a little more context for what happened at Sandy Beach (not so sandy anymore), there was lets say overuse of the sand dunes by humans in relation to vehicles, kids on body boards, foot traffic etc but to blatantly ignore a report in my eyes was somewhat criminal and a misuse of power Dune Care thought they had.
Impact by humans could have been managed differently.
DudeSweetDudeSweet nailed it, they did what they wanted to with no thought about what the consequences would be.
The consequence to what they did back in the early 2000s now has National Parks and local revegetation groups having to deal with erosion in others areas, areas that were once protected by dunal systems a lot further east of where they now lay.
If i knew how to post photos i could show the changes to the Sand blow and loss of it.
Not to take away from the original story, Ive wanted to go back to Treach for years now, still remember the first time i pulled up at that place and walked over the dunes, a picture i wont forget.
Cheers John.
Taking it back to first principles: As you say, "there was...overuse of the sand dunes by humans..." and there will be again unless we learn from our mistakes.
Sure, the authorities over-reached, used solutions with unknown consequences, but only in response to initial damage. If people don't appreciate the damage they can cause then, jeez, what's the point of all of this?
The very same thing will happen over and over again.
Currently on Facebook there are a great many people typing things like "Nationals Parks are morons", "Dune care are vandals", without anyone acknowledging the initial damage. Is it culturally uncool to admit that, yes, humans can cause damage to an environment?
These articles - and there's been a few now - aren't exercises in institutional bashing. I'd sincerely like to see marram removed from our beaches, but if people won't admit that the heavy load of humans is also a problem then we'll never get anywhere.
I guess in the case of my local beach the initial report was done to repair erosion caused by natural elements and the exposure of sedimentary rock which hadn't been seen for a long time.
The issues of human overuse was determined by Dune Care and nothing to do with the original report.
I totally agree that vehicle use should have been prevented from driving over the dunes but by other means. You live and you hopefully learn.
In saying all of the above I don't blame National Parks or any individual person/group. Without these group Nature will be destroyed.
My opinion is biased, I want the old banks back.
NPWS is a joke these days. I've got mates who work for them and the story is the same all over. It's the top management who have their heads up their arse.
I can see Stu's point about hindsight but the NPWS has been plagued with multiple failed knee jerk reactions with many environmental issues.
I too am over their overreach . Pricks closed down an entire headland in my area for over 6 months to build a walking trail for tourists that would have taken any normal construction company 2 weeks to complete. They also burned the area before hand and the salt bush is back thicker than ever. Way to go.
Great gig if you can get it (NPWS), just don't expect that you'll be changing anywhere for the better.
For those wankers out there who need fabricated and manicured walking trails around a headland to enjoy the scenery , go fuck yourselves .
Edit.. As for NPWS trying to negate human traffic , not if there's a dollar in it they won't.
100 % correct
Yep
Couldn't agree more. Ive seen these autocrats destroy more than one beach. And ive first hand experience of them ruining numerous surf spots by covering dunes.
Another case of people looking after their own interests…
Editor's Note: Hey Elliedog, I've removed the latter part of your comment. The owners of Treachery have been very good to us, answering questions that will hopefully create more good down the track. I hope you understand.
The negative signs of this type of behaviour to protect dunes… or in this case a camp ground were well and truly there by the 90’s
Fascinating backstory on Avalon, which had marram grass planted in 1970. The problem goes back fifty years prior, to when "The valley of Avalon, once it began to be cleared by early European settlers, was used primarily for running stock, including cattle to produce milk, cream and butter."
The following decades saw a camping area become an area of permanent residence during the Depression, the NRMA establishing a 'summer motor camp' in 1934, NSW Lands Department granting sand mining licenses in the 1940s, which was then stopped by the 'Avalon Preservation Trust' in the late 1960's (thirty years worth!) before marram grass was planted to 'remediate' the dunes in 1970.
Comprehensive images and reading here:
https://www.pittwateronlinenews.com/Avalon-Beach-Sand-Dunes-History.php
1925:
1930:
1968:
1970:
Oh, and a report from the early 1940's: "a circus pitched its tent not very far from where we were staying. Trained elephants, horses, dogs, lions, and monkeys were all included in the entertainment, as well as clowns, acrobats, trapeze artists and tightrope walkers."
There's a joke in there somewhere...
Photo below of elephants grazing in the Avalon sane dunes in the 1960s.
as a grom cutting teeth in Av through 80s and 90s, can remember by late 90s the older guys were not keen on the dune stabilisation.
What was the perceived change? A deterioration of surf quality because the dunes were stabilised? (edit: of course that was the perception, just wondering if there's anything more to add).
The old bloke occasionally complains that off rocks hasn't really worked since then.
Nanna used to talk about this; I'd always thought she was bullshitting.
This is awesome, nothing makes me fanboy more than a Swellnet marram grass article. Paging Alfred Wallace if you are around... Now I'll go and read it! Frothing.
Was there a northern limit to the use of Marram grass?
Not used up here, or is it?
Some info on Iluka:
"Over the years, the advancing sands, blowing inland from the beach dunes, caused the abandonment or removal of many private residences on the eastern outskirts of Iluka. It became such a serious problem that the government was forced to take action.
Around 1911, Mr E. M. De Burgh, Chief Engineer for Harbour & Water Supply, authorized a dune stabilization scheme to be commenced with the planting of Marram Grass (Ammophila arenaria) at Main beach near the end of the training wall.
By 1912 the grass was well established and slowly covering the dunes, a nursery had been erected to grow grass seedlings for planting out, and a considerable length of brush fencing was erected as part of the project. The grass planting continued for some time.
However, the drifting sand was still advancing westwards and threatening the existence of houses on the edge of Iluka township."
https://ilukamuseumnsw.wordpress.com/built-enviroment/shifting-sands/
Same thing happened across the river at Pippi beach in Yamba. Dunes were blowing into and encroaching the early township. Dune stabilisation matters were enacted, probably around the same time period, if not earlier.
Yamba / Iluka 1930's aerial view.
Angourie pt after sand mining late 60's.
Wow that second photo is incredible!
Amazing photos of Angourie and Yamba, both areas are now heavily vegetated. The complete opposite of these images.
Angourie point dune is now so heavily stabized the back side of the dune is getting chewed out by south swells at an alarming rate, leaving coffee rock and boulders exposed for the 1st time like never before..
Dune care have worked for years in this area, but now appear to have walked away, nature seems to be showing them who’s boss.
It’s just a shame when you see the damage the stabilzing has done and flow on effect it’s causing.
Let's see if this works FR
yes has been used at Angourie in the 90s,which made the banks either side not as good as they were
I've heard this from a few people, including Nav Fox etc. Any chance of removing it there in a concerted effort?
Here we go, 1991 it was planted. Check the vegetation only three years later in 1994.
Page 7 of this landcare PDF http://clarencelandcare.com.au/wp-content/Brochures/landcare25years.pdf
mate all the do gooders would be up in arms i would imagine
I wonder if the effect of Marram grass is not as noticeable up here because most of the effective sand is par of the long-shore drift budget and not moving in and out of local dune systems.
That's a great hypothesis, though re Angas, Nav swears it was better when the dunes were dunes.
The surf definitely was better, all the older generation will vouch for that and erosion didn’t seem to be as bad as it is now.
Good point. Might be more noticeable in embayments.
Reckon Ian Goodwin is the person we need to speak to here.
You reading this, Ian?
Had many a pumping session at Treach, great part of the world. Had some pretty wild nights down the old fishoes camp in Yagon...no place for the faint hearted. A little wildfire through there may excise a few demons...
Yeah same.
Also met a few of the hippy feral types who were living discreetly and illegally in the bush between Lighthouse and Yagon . They used to come out at night and just randomly join you if you had a fire going with a few drinks. I remember they always had weed . Full feral scene.
I imagine they've been moved on by now.
Same thing happened at 13th, Parks Vic stabilised the dunes and you never see the bank that used to form 150 metres off shore right near the bluff.
One of the greatest losses of a surf spot quality due to dune stabilization was at the south coast beach break (that once hosted a surfabout mobile contest day!). What was the most incredibly consistent right hander / peak with near identical conditions as Treachery that is now a sometimes very good shadow of its former self.
Was thinking of that same spot, Mr Thomas.
Dune care and Natio parks are skitz cnts who should be kept in cages well away from Aussie landscapes. Neither have seen a patch of bush or beach they think couldn’t be improved with coppers logs, mass signage and applications of poison.
What someone think of the birds
yeah, still has its moments...if you like surfing with lots of friends.
Yes it does. It's just not quite as frequent and for as long as it used to.
Forget the marram grass, last time I was there,you won’t see it.
Sign at front of treachery.
No day parking and no surf checks!
My family’s response WTF.
My response maybe sandbar
Stay strong
I haven't been to Treachery for many years, but I recall that the first time I was there in 2001 it well and truly lived up to its name. Beautiful A-frames up in the corner with about 6 people in the water. My first wave of the day, I took off on a 4-foot right, only to come a-cropper in the shorey. Popped up to find my board bent in half at 90 degrees. Spent the rest of the morning sitting on the edge of aforementioned dune watching my mates gorging themselves. I paid the piper that day.
Definitely had an impact on the quality of the beachies on the mornington peninsula,
P.I , kilcunda ... hard to know what can be done really? working bee dig ups of the grass.. It's been a disaster for surfers, I'm sure we are pretty much the only sub culture really concerned about it.
If anybody remembers St Andrews beach prior to dune stabilisation is was a desert. Now completely vegetated not sure if it has effected bank quality but those older than me reckon it has. Was done in the mid 80's. Use do be able to drive your car right to the famed left hander now you stop at the top or go around. Stu is right, I think dune buggys in the 70's trashed it and spinifex it such a delicate rooting grass gets destroyed pretty easily which surfers had a part in.
Great article and it's true, that beautiful stretch of coast had that real 'get away from it all' feel.
The Yagon monster used to terrify me as a grom even though nobody could ever really explain to me what it was.
PS- I reckon I'd still take Marram grass over cement any day.
There are Australian local natives in a complex web of life as seen in the spinifex dune profile diagram above..... once full of crabs, beach worms, pipis, whiting, seabirds..... ect
and there are the imported weedy migrants; O/S plants often used by horticulturists for a quick fix job (eg sand mining stabilisation); many overseas plants are sold in nurseries, widely used to pretty a garden & dumped in the bush and/or spread by wind & animals; now considered prolific weeds in Oz without competition. A multi-million dollar / 10- 30 year restoration task per site, usually with low or no budget, until elections come around looking for the green or farmers vote.
What can we do?
1. Awareness of what is important
2. Anticipation of what is coming down the line
3. Action to stop the pressures or deal with impacts.
If you dont know one plant from another or what role the local plants have in the extensive variations of Australian ecosystems, learn the difference & ask an Australian ecologist or botanist.
Reference
‘Existential threat to our survival’: see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing
Published: February 26, 2021
https://theconversation.com/existential-threat-to-our-survival-see-the-1...
Great article! I’ve started working in (and still learning about) bush regeneration. Much of our work is cleaning huge masses of invasive weeds. Fixing mistakes of the past. I haven’t worked on Marram, but we have been clearing plenty of Bitou. So many of our ecosystems are a mess. From escaped house plants too. I would like to take this opportunity to urge everyone to consider only ever plating native plants, especially focusing on those endemic to your area. Also I’d suggest to go join a local bush care group, volunteers are desperately needed everywhere. Come help fix the problem.
Good stuff Lilly.
A few references worth a look
https://www.ballinacoastcare.org/downloads/
Lilly, a friend and I attended a bush care group meeting where the theme was coastal planting. 30 odd people attended. They had many sprigs of so called coastal plants that should be used but gave no instructions on where on the coast they should be planted. My friend asked, where should these plants be planted? The Bush Care instructors reply was , "Anywhere!" The NSW Coastal Dune Management Manual states, "Some beaches are too narrow for a complete dune system." This phrase is not for the sake of placing letters in a book just for fun, but for very good environmental reasons, yet many of these these groups have relentlessly planted even the narrowest of beaches. I'd be careful who I sign up with if you want to help the environment and not stuff it up.
Would I be right to say that in the time of Aboriginal land management of the coastal areas, there would be far more burns, far more fires? (Edit: far more fires of less intensity than just locking away land and being surprised when a Black Saturday occurs...) We know the coastal heath is adapted to fire (indeed, eucalypts came from it) and the process of 'firestick farming' was used to create open hunting areas. The botanist Banks reported that the coast of the entire continent seemed constantly ablaze as he sailed up it.
Would an active fire regime create more areas of blowout, and in the absence of marram, create those beautiful banks and gentle gradients of slope from the foredune into the outer sandbanks?
Would marram, being an invasive species, be susceptible to fire? While the native spinifexes are not so much. (Can you see where I'm going with this?)
I would suggest reading Tim Flannery's book "The Future Eaters" from the local library
awarded Australian of the Year in 2007
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Eaters
https://www.abc.net.au/science/future/theses/theses.htm
Transcript Part 1
https://www.abc.net.au/science/future/ep1/trans1.htm
Yes, I have a hardcover copy on the top shelf :) Have had it for many years. (His book, Country, is very good too).
The chapter 'Sons of Prometheus' deals with firestick farming - I wonder if it extended to coastal heathlands? Surely, yes.
The article mentions the idea of a burn off but seems it was canned and I thought the same thing.
From what I can find fire alone won't do it , probably even make it worse.
"Control
Cultural Control and Sanitary Measures
Pickart et al. (1997) reported on a number of techniques used for controlling A. arenaria. These included the use of sea water, a treatment which resulted in initial browning of the vegetation but the salt water did not penetrate deeply into the sand for full control.
Physical/Mechanical Control
Manual removal of A. arenaria has been found to be effective but needs intense repeated efforts to ensure that small, overlooked plants do not flourish after removal of larger competitors (Pickart, 1997). The first removal efforts are the most labour intensive. Mechanical removal is only suitable for sites that are easily accessed, relatively flat and with few native plants. Large scale mechanical removal has been attempted, with some promising results (Pickart, 1997). Partridge (1997) found that manual weeding in New Zealand could be effective but must be carried out at least twice a year. He also found that after the initial weeding A. arenaria grew with renewed vigour possibly because of the removal of dead material which may shade and inhibit shoot growth.
Biological Control
Few insect or fungal species have been found to feed or live exclusively on this species and biological control has not been considered.
Chemical Control
Glyphosate has proved successful in controlling A. arenaria although its efficacy depends on the consistency and thoroughness of application. Pickart (1997) highlights the promise that chemical control offers, but cautions that herbicides like glyphosate can affect other species of plants and that its use in some areas may be politically unacceptable.
IPM
Hyland and Holloran (2005) investigated combinations of burning and herbicide application for control of A. arenaria. Burning removes the existing thatch of dead material but stimulates regrowth. The resultant regrowth was treated one year later with glyphosate and then repeated several times over the following year. Hyland and Holloran (2005) claim that this integrated approach shows promise as a way of reducing existing control costs substantially, but point out, that easy access, in-house expertise and the existence of residual native plant communities are all necessary for successful control. In 2001, an ambitious programme was started to eradicate A. arenaria from an area on Stewart Island, New Zealand (DOC, 2015). Each summer the grass is sprayed with haloxyfop, a herbicide that kills grasses but does not affect the native sedge pingao, Desmoschoenus spiralis [Ficinia spiralis]."
https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/4898
Great resources there. It seems that fire encourages it to grow more. What a prick of a plant. Looks like a combined approach is the best way at present. Surfers are the ones to be around the most at all times of year, and the ones to go further to more remote areas - surely we have an incentive to identify and remove it?
I would imagine that the extent of impact of fire stick farming on sand dune ecosystems would be minimal and only go as far as assisting in seed dispersal and viability by spreading from nearby coastal health lands that may have been burned but as far as actually burning in dunes i wouldn’t imagine so.
Im no expert by any means and open to being proved wrong but that’s just what I reckon.
I was lucky enough to participate in a burn on grasslands and open woodlands recently and you would be surprised how small of a gap in native grass stops a low temp fire spreading (mind you In winter) Couldn’t imagine a burn spreading through dune veg but then against most of our representations of dune structures in the country are deeply altered and disturbed systems that bare little resemblance to what they would of been like before white fullas moved in.
Either way, we will see a massive resurgence of low temp fires as a land management tool in the next few years once everyone gets over the initial fear.
Agree on that last point, but what would the CO2 clergy say on that?
Probably pales into insignificance compared to all the coal fired power stations going up in the northern Hemi though.
Each site could be treated differently, as per the culture, needs of the ecosystem & community
The current NSW legal RFS conditions for a hazard reduction & burning can be found here
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/resources/publications/hazard-reduction/bush-...
NSW RFS Fire and weed management
These guidelines focus on weeds that pose a bush fire risk. The purpose is to ensure that appropriate
measures are undertaken when using fire to manage the bush fire risk posed by weeds. Reference
to specific weed species will be incorporated as and when guidance can be provided. Weed species
will be added to this guideline on the advice of the DPI
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/212934/CMR1503-BF...
It looks like it's not just the plant biodiversity that's disrupted by marram grass, it also effects the insect populations contained within the dune system, and again not in a positive way.
I was made aware of this study by the author Dr Cameron Webb.
"In this study we examine whether stabilization of denuded coastal foredunes in southeastern Australia with the exotic grass species Ammophila arenaria (marram grass) restores plant and ground-active arthropod assemblages characteristic of undisturbed foredunes. "
"By contrast, stabilized dunes exhibited lower plant species richness and highly significant differences in plant species composition, due mainly to the large projected foliage cover of marram grass.
The study revealed that after 12 years, the vegetation composition and structure of stabilized dunes was still dominated by marram grass and, as a result, invertebrate assemblages had not been restored to those characteristic of undisturbed foredunes."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1526-100x.2000.80040.x
When a fire starts to burn, right, and it starts to spread, She gon' bring that marram grass under control
pure gold there rukas
First trip to treachery in 1970, had to wait at farm gate to be let in by Johns grandad, he said "cost you two bob to look or two bob to surf". A couple of years later, arrived at Yagon at night after navigating 4wd sand tracks. slept in dunes with sounds and lights of sand mining dredge and bulldozers to the south.
Please lets not forget Bitou Bush, we used to have yearly spraying by plane, until someone complained.
The milk is spilt.
Although, midnight bull dozer missions pushing sand out to the shallows would restore things quickly....
Port Kembla (Perkins Beach ) to Windang suffers the same problem , back in the early 80s marram grass was planted and that was the end of the perfect sand banks .
Remember being a grom and seeing the pic of Woonoona in Mark Warren's book thinking - how good is that wave? Man those east coast beachies are epic, why can't I have that here*?
Is this break a shadow of itself now?
*WA has much less sand movement, probably accentuates coastal planning stuff ups on it's beachies
The locals removed the grass, the sand and banks returned, non surfing new locals complained about sand on the road.
Only partly true Savanova. Council removed some vegetation but left the beach steep which creates backwash which puts a warble through the break. The banks are fickle and deep and a 2//10 of what they were before the planting.
Great article, saw the stuff everywhere and bitou bush. Once you see it it's impossible to unsee it and it's everywhere on the east coast. It would be cool if one-day you guys did an article about the anatomy of a beachy. I.e what makes a good one.
I'm no longer on the east coast, or in Australia but I was developing my own theories as I spent a few months going up and down the coast. I'd love to cross check it against your professional opinion.
The perfect beach is less than a kilometre long. There’s a left off one end and a right at the other. There’s a peak in the middle where the Clearwater creek flows onto the beach and builds a tasty split peak You can’t see any signs of humanity from the water, only the lush green hillsides which build to a crest from a couple of hundred metres inland of the beach. Theres a handful of fellas surfing and no one on the beach except perhaps a couple of local crew sharing a joint/ beer in summer under the pandanus or a yarn around a discrete fire on the sand in winter. There’s kangaroos on the sand and raptors overhead. The water is usually crystal clear and holds everything from whites to horse tailor to monster Jew.. Dolphins are routinely surfing through the lineup.
You can get long semi-point rides, beltable pockets or intense slabby pits depending on the sand.
Plenty of other great beach setups but this is the one I’m crushing on these days.
BTW….I understood your request but couldn’t help go out on a tangent. Maybe someone will write the article you seek? Sounds interesting.
Having the pleasure of surfing such a beach with the sand in all the right spots and less than a handful of people.
4-6ft, clean as a whistle along with deep blue water as a late summer cold outbreak brought crisp air with lingering, low hanging showers. The sun piercing through the low black clouds, lighting up the wet black rocks on the headland while illuminating the sets as they stood up and broke.
Never in my surfing life have I witnessed such contrast between the electric light bouncing back up at me through the wave face when up and riding, blinding against the moody background. Wedging entries that would wall up and grow, ending up near the half way point of the beach.
Spiritual.
If you know, which I know you do, congratulations and….keep it dark.
Spiritual is right. There’s a small but strong local crew who live and breathe the place. Good surfers, good people.
As for that light you described
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro (English: /kiˌɑːrəˈsk(j)ʊəroʊ/ kee-AR-ə-SKOOR-oh, -SKURE-, Italian: [ˌkjaroˈskuːro]; Italian for 'light-dark'), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.
Love these surfing history and background stories about our coastline.
Back in 1971 the Newcastle crew to save 20 cents (cost of a middy of beer) overnight camp fee at Treachery we would bush bash VW’s, EH Holden wagons out to the headland and cook our baked beans over an open fire with the 8 track stereo blasting away. Also climb up and down the rock face to surf.
Merewether to Dixon Park stretch had sand dunes between road and surf until early 70’s when they built a brush box fence to stop sand blowing onto road. Replaced with a half pipe concrete fence for about 10 years then recently Bathers Way open fence upgrade for latte sipping active wearers and dog walkers. Surf quality has dropped
When we lived near Cape St Francis 1975 just sand dunes on the headland, always sand in the waves. Now houses on headland and no sand in the waves. Surf quality has dropped
Same at Angourie in 1977 before the dune stabilisation. Sand in the waves. Nav is right, waves were better before dune stabilisation (see his previous comment) Surf quality has dropped
BUT REAL ESTATE PRICES EVERYWHERE HAVE RISEN
Very interesting observations but what worries me about this is the fact that prior to Jack Browns purchase the access to these beaches was always through overhead scrub. This used to be one place we would drop into in 1963 and often to get through the frontal dune we would lay on our single finners to get through the dune growth. So to me marran grass is a contributor but the main culprit was sand mining.
Cheers Ross
Thanks Ross, but you must be remembering the scrub above the dunes as they've always been big exposed spanses, even before sand mining.
Here's 1964, pre-sand mining..
Here's during the 90's sometime, when the sand mined dune just west of the 4wd track, mid-beach was regenerated and growing back. Can see the patchier vegetation.
Doesn't change my point Craig. The stability of all the dunes that have been mined have not been considered. In the 50 years I have lived here and the 10 years before that my observations of the beaches in the midcoast. the most common denominator has been just how quickly the dunes and banks change on sand mined beaches.
For sure, mining the beaches would have affected the sand available to the system, but the point of the article is the locking down and mass vegetation of a huge area of dune system which historically (pre mining) was exposed, non-vegetated and transient.
Lets not forget why the beaches were mined.......gold and black sand minerals.......anyone ever pick up a handful of black sand ? notice its really heavy.....no brainer why the sand is moving a lot these days without the stabilisation of the black mineral sand.
This is from around 2006
Thanks Gunther, can see that marram in the foreground and the lower vegetation height.
Looks like the only way to get rid of it is to have a big burn, nuke it with glysophosphate (1%), plant shed loads of spinifex, fence if off, and keep me and all you bastards confined to narrow defined access paths.
Here's something else that's wrong about planting on beaches. The seaward side of the ever-increasing planted dunes get steeper with each grain of sand that blows onto them. Backwash is the result which as described forces sand off the beach making once great sandbanks deep and waves fickle. Now imagine this happening all along our entire coastline. Deep trenches where shallow sand banks once were. Storm waves travelling shorewards through this deep water hitting steeper beaches. A band of deep water where shallow waters once were. It's no wonder we're getting record erosion events on our beaches! The solution is to get our beaches wide and flat again so waves can help accrete sand rather than erode sand.
I remeber growing up in SE Victoria with consistent good banks, these days a good bank is a rareity.
Some spots that I still rate as the best waves I've surfed just don't line up any more. The beaches are erroded and thin of sand, where they used to be full and steep to the water.
I've watched this happen from regular walks with my dogs over 40 years, the change is devastating.
What I really would like to know is how this has effected the hooded plover, theres no beach left for them to nest on and dune stabilisation may be a untold reason why?
Its not just us surfers who are suffering from the effects of Marram Grass. Copied this from parks Victoria.
Hooded Plovers often like nesting with indigenous Hairy
Spinifex (Spinifex sericeus), while Marram Grass
(Ammophila arenaria), introduced to stabilise dunes,
changes the dune to a steeper profile often causing
instability and nesting failure.
Agh, didn't think of the Hooded Plovers. More collateral of the marram.