NGT Awarded Grant Funding for a Wetland Restoration Trial at Gooseneck Swamp, Grampians National Park

NGT Awarded Grant Funding for a Wetland Restoration Trial at Gooseneck Swamp, Grampians National Park

The latest round of Communities for Nature Grants have been announced by the Department of Sustainability and Environment in Victoria. For a full list of funded projects, please click here.

As you will see on the last page of the list of projects, Nature Glenelg Trust has been awarded a small grant to enable us to work with local community groups, Parks Victoria and the Glenelg Hopkins CMA, to plan, design and undertake a wetland restoration trial at Gooseneck Swamp within the Grampians National Park, near Dunkeld.

Gooseneck Swamp was added to the National Park in the 1980s but still bears a minor “scar” from its history as a farming property – in the form of a small artificial drainage outlet channel – that freely drains the swamp (all the way to its bed level) once inflows cease. Please click on the image below to see this area for yourself in more detail.

The trial is about using temporary infrastructure (a low-level sandbag weir / spillway – constructed with volunteer assistance) as a simple and low-risk way of helping evaluate the options for managing the site, to improve its wetland values into the future. The project will officially start in the next couple of months but has a bit of “behind the scenes” homework to do (the communication, planning and design phase) before the trial can commence, so the aim will be for works to occur in early 2014 – in time for winter next year.

As always, we will keep you up to date on our progress through these updates – so watch this space!

Oblique aerial image showing the artificial outlet that drains Gooseneck Swamp (above) into Brady Swamp (bottom of image)

Mark Bachmann