,Finniss River Riparian Improvement

Life starts with Water

The theory is that maximising native biodiversity in the water courses, creates a base for a wide variety of insects, birds, animals and fish to thrive on. This ensures resilience of the riparian ecosystem in the face of changing land use and climate, and in its turn a base for life outside the riparian zone. The practice is to remove as much of the non native vegetation as is reasonable and beneficial and replant with native species from the area, and to follow up year by year to prevent reinvasion and do infill planting. Government funding pays for contractors to do the heavy work. We provide the follow up, without which the initial work would be wasted.

Life by the water

The section of river that we have chosen to start on is very beautiful, cutting through steep gorges, with good reaches of permanent water and a waterfall, occasionally spreading into broad gum studded glades. Every 2^nd or 3^rd Saturday morning, up to a dozen of us spend 3 hours in this lovely environment, mostly looking for and removing any re-sprouting or new growth, but at other times planting the seedlings we have grown in the Nursery and always eating cake. We are now in our third year and have discovered a number of native species one of which Brachyschome Graminacae (grass daisy) is state endangered. Other species include:

• Lobelia Alata (Angled Lobelia)
• Sigesbeckia Orientalis (Indian Weed)
• Rubus Parvifolius (Native Raspberry)
• Daucus Glochidiatus (Native Carrot)
• Mentha Australis (Native Mint)
• Veronica Hillerbrandii (Coast Speedwell)
• Juncus Species
• Nicotiana Maritime (Coast Tobacco)
• Scleranthus Pungens(Prickly Knowel)