Dune Signage - Respect Your Dunes

8 January 2024

by Hamilton Pearson, Conservation Leading Hand

The Conservation team have recently completed the installation of new updated dune signage across our beaches.

These new signs aim to raise awareness about the importance of keeping our dunes healthy and minimising disturbance and damage to our dune systems.

Dunes play an important role in how our beaches are shaped. They function as a dynamic, adaptable bank of sand that can adjust according to the various changing influences that our coastlines face.

There’s history underneath our beautiful sandy dunes including shell middens, evidence of life long ago. Coastal shell middens hold thousands of years of information about how First Nations people lived and utilised this abundant coastline. These time capsules are the natural museums of early Australia and are highly susceptible to damage and disturbance due to informal access to the dunes.

When our dunes are healthy and unnatural disturbance is limited, they are able to develop into refuges for our native wildlife. The dune strip is an abundant place for animals to forage and live, as it is the interface between land and sea, there are many ecological niches and it offers various habitat structures for many different plants and animals such as our vulnerable Hooded Plover. Healthy dunes also help to protect our townships from wind and wind blown sand, storm surges and coastal erosion.

Respect your dunes!

You can help protect your dunes health by sticking to designated access tracks, staying off the dune face when visiting the beach, and keeping to dog regulations. If you feel especially enthused about helping out in the conservation of your dunes, why not get involved?

Come along to a working bee with the various volunteer groups along the coast: