Restoration works at Stipiturus CP are hopefully just around the corner – Register your interest now!

It is hard to believe, but it has been 12 months since we completed the restoration options report for Glenshera Swamp, in Stipiturus Conservation Park, and if all goes to plan then the first steps towards improving the hydrology of this important wetland will hopefully get underway in April 2017.

Those first proposed steps (see image below) involve installing a series of adjustable geo-fabric sandbag weir structures, to:

• reinstate the meanders in the natural creek line above the swamp, slowing flow velocity, restoring waterway habitat and improving water quality
• restore flows to the final, currently isolated, section of creek, which will then deliver water back into the top of Glenshera Swamp for the first time in over 70 years
• decommission the rest of the bypass drain, to prevent it drawing water away from the swamp

Before and after view of the current plan for restoring surface flows back into Glenshera Swamp, illustrated using the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) for the project area. Note: lighter shading = higher, darker shading = lower elevations, which is why the drain appears darker in colour than its surrounds.

Assuming everything falls into place over the next few weeks, then April is shaping up to be a busy month of sandbagging!

We’ll have a limited number of places available for interested helpers to register as volunteers to assist our core crew working on the job. Because this will happen over several days throughout the month, there will be a number of dates to choose from. All this means, if you are keen and physically fit, there is no excuse for not being involved in some very satisfying, practical, wetland restoration work.

If you would like to take part in the first Fleurieu Swamp hydrological restoration project, then please register your interest, and we’ll be in touch with further details soon, including potential dates to choose from.

You can register your interest by contacting our Adelaide-based ecologist, Thai Te, on 0423 183 139, or by email  

NGT’s Thai Te, standing in the artificial bypass drain, at one of the locations where an adjustable geo-fabric structure will be installed to reactivate the natural meandering creek line – which was left high and dry after the drain was constructed in the 1940s.