Spurge purge at Kennett River
5 December 2023
by Tyler Wilkie, Conservation Leading Hand
On Wednesday 22nd November, our Conservation and Coastal Reserves team hosted a ‘Spurge Purge’ day in Kennett River.
Sea Spurge, or Euphorbia paralias is an invasive weed that dominates sections of the Great Ocean Road coastline. It is a small leafy shrub of a pale green colour and can grow about 70 centimetres in height. Once established, a colony can spread rapidly displacing native vegetation and changing the beach and dune system structure.
The local Landcare group Wye to Wongarra have gone to great lengths at removing the Sea Spurge in this location by hand. Their efforts have made a huge impact on reducing the mass of the weed in the area. This aim of this day was a follow-up to further control the regrowth and new shoots that have sprouted and was a great success with about 25 staff participating from all areas of the organisation.
This day was well and truly a team effort and all staff in the organisation were encouraged to participate as many hands make light work. With all hands on deck, we managed to reach a record amount of Sea Spurge that was ‘purged’ in such a short amount of time.
All the staff who participated put in a tremendous amount of effort and were so happy to be out of the office amongst nature doing their bit for our environment.
