Marengo Beach Restoration Works
15 November 2023
by Kristian Russell, Conservation Ranger
Over the last 12 months the Apollo Bay Conservation Team has chipped away at our goal of establishing a thriving dune ecosystem between the Barham River mouth and Marengo Reefs Marine Sanctuary. This is a beautiful stretch of beach that not only borders other environmentally rich sites, but also provides key habitat opportunities for Hooded Plovers.
The starting point for these works was a beach with a good base of foredune species, little to no incipient dune species, several established weed populations, and a lack of good formal accesses.
Images: The erosion present without incipient dune species and damage caused by improper beach access.
Before we had begun our restoration work, 3 access stairs were installed at sites along the beach and sand renourishment works had taken place.
These new access stairs allowed us to fence off the most damaged parts of the beach so that we could begin removing weeds, planting the dunes with the incipient dune species it was lacking, and most importantly allow the beach to have time to heal.
2022 Revegetation at Ocean Park Drive Access
With new stairs, sand, and fences, our conservation team was able to start implementing the ongoing works at the Marengo Beach. We did this firstly by removing established woody weeds and beginning the difficult and time-consuming task of reducing grass and herbaceous weeds along the beach. This included weeds that spread along the shoreline like Marram Grass and Sea Spurge, weeds that were blown in by the wind like Cape weed, thistles, and Purple Groundsel, and the daunting presence of the ever encroaching Kikuyu and Buffalo Grasses from the Great Ocean Road.
Finally came the best part, revegetation!
Revegetating the incipient dune with Carpobrotus rossii and Spinifex sericeus and reintroducing indigenous vegetation to the bare areas at the Ocean Park Drive Access and the old toilet block site. We begun back in the Spring of 2022 focusing on the bare access site at Ocean Park Drive and the old toilet block site. With encouraging results and cooling temperatures we resumed the beach revegetation in Autumn 2023, and hope to complete the major revegetation work with another 400 Spinifex seedlings to be planted in Autumn of 2024.
Images: 2023 Revegetation South of Ocean Park Drive and Spinifex sericeus Revegetation north of Ocean Park Drive.
As we progress with this work, we would like to thank the locals for helping support the restoration of this beautiful beach as it recovers by continuing to use the new access stairs and staying out of the fenced areas.