A PLAN to drop 40 tonnes of giant red gums into the Murray is expected to boost the breeding cycles of native fish, save the river’s ecology and right past environmental wrongs.

Thousands of logs have been pulled from the Murray in recent decades to dredge boating channels, and the Greening Australia group is about to reverse the practice by undertaking the first large scale re-snagging project in South Australia.

Greening Australia state chief Mark Anderson said removing snags had altered breeding habitats and had led to a decline in fish stocks.

As part of major port expansion works at Port Botany in New South Wales, Sydney Ports Corporation is spending approximately $8 million to rehabilitate and expand Penrhyn Estuary in efforts to reverse the declining quality of the estuarine habitat for migratory shorebirds, seagrass and saltmarsh and to address the impacts of the port expansion on the function of the Estuary.

Until recently, both areas were unprotected Crown land and were not under management. The areas have now been included in the Ballina Regional Crown Reserve and will be preserved for their high conservation values. These conservation values include a number of listed Endangered Ecological Communities and threatened flora and fauna species. WetlandCare Australia will work in partnership with the Grafton office of the Department of Lands to manage the wetlands over the next two years.

A method for rapidly and simply assessing the health of estuarine wetland ecosystems that require management, conservation and/or rehabilitation has been developed. Called the Estuarine Wetland Health Assessment Project, it is included in the Wetland Assessment Techniques Manual for Australian Wetlands. This manual also includes assessments for other types of wetlands including Freshwater ecosystems.

The NSW Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Verity Firth, launched the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Action Plan on 5 May 2008, a guide to protecting and improving the region’s natural resources over the next 10 years.

The Sydney Metropolitan Catchment Management Authority (SMCMA) has released a process for prioritising environmental work in Sydney’s wetlands on their website. The prioritisation technique was developed for the CMA by Wetland Care Australia. The project reviewed 8 other assessment methods to ensure a high standard of assessment yet remain relevant to the unique environmental pressures of Sydney.

WetlandCare Australia will shortly finalise their ‘Wetland Rehabilitation Guidelines for Great Barrier Reef Catchments’. This product was developed with funding through the Queensland Wetlands Programme, a joint initiative of the Australian and Queensland Governments.

The Guideline is an 80+ page document containing a wealth of information about how to manage and rehabilitate wetlands in coastal Queensland. To accompany the Guidelines a series of Case Studies and Fact Sheets have also been produced.

Conservation and management of wetlands on private and government owned lands is assisted by NGOs. A short description and contact details are supplied for; Australian Wetlands Alliance, Conservation Volunteers Australia, the Hunter Wetlands Centre, Wetlands International, Wetland Care Australia, and, World Wide Fund for Nature Australia.

These organisations provide a contact point for people wanting to be involved in the conservation of wetlands in Australia.

The Cooperative Research Centre for Weed Management has a website at: http://www.weeds.crc.org.au/projects/index.html, which is a good source of information for weed management projects.

The Bundjalung Mapping Project has created a highly secured, user-friendly computer-based record keeping system through which Aboriginal communities can record and own their cultural knowledge. It has suite of web based tools to support the user in understanding protocols, an overview of Aboriginal cultural heritage and procedures to take when accessing information on Aboriginal significant sites and places.

As water resources become more and more scarce, wetlands provide a resource in an otherwise dry environment. The re-flooding period is a critical time for wetland protection as this is when the vegetation is re-seeding.

The Community Rapid Assessment Manual (CRAM) is a collection of manuals/guidelines for use in assessment and monitoring a range of environmental variables. The manual, used consistently across the Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment, allows for comparison of data collected by different groups across space and time.

The Water for a Healthy Country Flagship organises its research around four key issues which collectively address some of the most critical water resource challenges facing Australia; Urban water, Water Resources Observation Network, Great Barrier Reef catchment and Better Basin Futures research. Each theme is designed to capture the triple bottom line character of natural resource management

This report provides an overview of the natural hydrology of the Darling Basin, the development that has occurred, and the effect this is having on river flows and groundwater resources. Some of this information can assist wetland managers.

Water Regime of Wetland & Floodplain Plants in the Murray-Darling Basin is a summary of water regime information for native plants of lowland riverine systems within the Murray-Darling Basin. The report brings together sparse and dispersed published information. It is an excellent resource for persons and organizations involved in ecological aspects of river flow and wetland management.

An old polluted drain flows between the Sydney suburbs of Annandale and Lilyfield. The native bush was chopped down over a hundred years ago, swamps filled in and Whites Creek was turned into a concrete stormwater drain, forming a hostile environment for frogs and fish.

Then, Friends of the Earth had a vision to reduce pollution in Sydney Harbour by mimicking nature and using natural means.

AABR NSW is an incorporated association having members who are ecological restoration professionals, volunteers and people generally interested in restoration of natural areas.

Keeping in touch with NRM news in the remote north of Australia is easier than you think with three great e-news options: The Basin Bullet serving the Desert Channels in QLD, Gulf Links serving the Southern Gulf of QLD and The Fitzroy Basin Association e-news.

Southern Rivers CMA have launched an Indigenous Natural Resource Newsletter. The Koori Catch Up provides information about the SRCMA that might be of interest to the Aboriginal community. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of the CMA, introduces the Koori Team that work for the CMA, and gives updates of regional events and funding opportunities. Future issues may contain stories from the SRCMA region, as well as other facts and fun.

The Long-nosed Potoroo can occasionally be seen foraging after dark. Its presence can sometimes be detected from the cone shaped diggings it leaves in sandy soil where it unearths its diet of roots and grubs. The Long-nosed Potoroo inhabits coastal heaths and dry and wet sclerophyll forests. If you have seen a Long-nosed Potoroo, that area is a habitat for a vulnerable threatened species.

The Bush-hen is a small, dark wetland bird with greenish-yellow legs, and a lime-green beak, although the base of the upper beak becomes orange-red in the breeding season. The Bush-hen inhabits coastal northern Australia, through eastern Queensland to the NSW north coast. The species is shy and usually first comes to notice when the loud, distinctive braying, shrieking call is heard. It is listed as vulnerable on the Threatened Species Conservation Act, 1995.

Wilsonia backhousei grows on the margins of salt marshes and lakes, both coastal and inland, in Sydney Metropolitan CMA and Southern Rivers CMA regions. Populations are threatened by development pressures and trampling by stock. Narrow-leafed Wilsonia populations can be enhanced by identification, fencing out stock and four-wheel drives, weeding and controlling polluted run-off

In many cases development consent is required prior to placing fill, and particularly on wetlands or on flood prone land. Placing fill on wetlands can raise the land level above the water level, essentially resulting in the land no longer being a wetland. Placing fill on part of a wetland or beside a wetland can disrupt flows and thus alter the ecology, resulting in weed profusion and decline of the plant community.

Accepting fill from unscrupulous operators can have additional problems. Fill can contain contaminants which can harm your family’s health, permanently devalue your property and leave you with a substantial clean up costs. You may also face on-the-spot fines or prosecution for illegally using waste as landfill. If you are unsure ask your local Council or call DECC’s Environment Line on 131 555 during business hours

The NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (TSC Act) identifies and protects native plants and animals in danger of becoming extinct and provides for species recovery and threat abatement programs.

The TSC Amendment Act 2004 puts greater emphasis on land-use planning which focuses on the protection and restoration of native vegetation and threatened species habitat at the landscape scale and integrates with the Government’s other reforms to natural resource management and planning.