Restoring Coasts and Connections on a Southern Australian Coastline
With coastal populations steadily increasing in Victoria, pressures on coastal landscapes and ecosystems continue to mount. Increased human and vehicular traffic threaten biodiversity values, while human settlements introduce pollutants to terrestrial, in
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Restoring Coasts and Connections on a Southern Australian Coastline Matthew Fox
With coastal populations steadily increasing in Victoria, pressures on coastal landscapes and ecosystems continue to mount. Increased human and vehicular traffic threaten biodiversity values, while human settlements introduce pollutants to terrestrial, intertidal, and marine ecosystems. Meanwhile, coastal habitat is cleared and fragmented by residential and commercial development. There is some irony in the fact that these mounting human pressures threaten to undermine the very attributes people seek in their coastal lifestyle. However, an opposing force has existed quietly for the past two decades, gathering on weekends in small groups on the reserves along Victoria’s 1,250-mile coastline. Dedicated volunteers have braved the elements, struggled with red tape, overcome funding challenges, and taken on physically arduous tasks in order to restore and protect their local environs. The impacts of individual actions may be small in scale, but when considered collectively and over this extended time period, they constitute a very significant set of achievements. Indeed, a whole suite of Victoria’s coastal ecosystems are now greatly improved, many in areas where they would otherwise not persist in the face of intensive human activity. At the heart of the restoration movement is a direct relationship between the volunteer and the coast. These relationships differ from one person to the next, some offering hope for the future, others providing validation within the community. Regardless of the reasons behind volunteer actions, restoration can also provide for deeper engagement with ecology because restoring and improving ecological function places us back within the ecosystem.
A Long History of People on the Coast Indigenous people have inhabited Victoria’s coastline for tens of thousands of years. The continuous relationship between people and the coast is perhaps one of the longest running anywhere. At the time of European settlement, five main clan groups permanently occupied territories along the coastline we now know as Victoria. This section of southern shoreline was the most densely populated area of the continent at D. Egan (eds.), Human Dimensions of Ecological Restoration: Integrating Science, Nature, and Culture, 51 The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-039-2_4, © Island Press 2011
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the time of European arrival. Up to one thousand generations of indigenous peoples may have lived here. Active management of natural resources by indigenous communities included “firestick” management (controlled burning) of vegetation, and the trapping and ongrowing of eels in weirs constructed of stone. Some marine species were “protected” by taboo systems—many coastal groups chose not to hunt the edible and abundant sharks and rays, for example. The apparently near-pristine condition of Victoria’s coast impressed the first British explorers, who described an abundance of fish, mol
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