Come on a virtual tour around the new Walker Swamp addition

We’re very excited about the new addition to our Walker Swamp Restoration Reserve so we thought it would be a good time to share some more images so you can see what all the fuss is about.

Firstly, the 80 ha (200 acre) woodland patch which abuts the northern end of the swamp:
One of the largest patches of intact Rough-barked Manna Gum (Eucalyptus viminalis ssp. cygnetensis) dominated woodland in the local area, it’s in excellent condition and is now protected in perpetuity by its addition to the reserve. It’s actually a mosaic of communities with patches of Prickly Tea-tree and River Red Gum woodland as well as dense heathy woodland. With all this diversity in habitat types, the value to local species is easy to see.

Click on the video below for a birds eye view.

There are also some other treasures out there in the areas that were actively grazed. There are some truly ancient, gnarly old red gums, but also plenty of younger trees of different age cohorts with an open grassy understorey. There’s a diversity of small wetland types in really good condition and patches of remnant trees.

We do have a big revegetation task in front of us to restore the cleared areas back to their original diverse habitats, but we’re confident we’ve got great building blocks to work with. Thanks to the recently announced funding from the Victorian Government’s Nature Fund we can make a start on the next steps. These steps include establishing baseline monitoring, better understanding the condition and values of the diversity of habitats, controlling weeds, setting up a conservation covenant on the intact woodland patch and identifying future restoration approach.

The Expanding Walker Swamp project is being delivered by

with the generous support of
the Glenelg Hopkins CMA,
the Hamilton Field Naturalists Club, and
the Victorian Government through the Nature Fund Program