DUNECARE INITIATIVE- COASTAL MANAGEMENT GRANTS PROGRAM ANNOUNCED

The Bellarine and Great Ocean Road Dunecare Initiative is a $1.5M investment from the Australian Government’s Environment Restoration Fund to conserve coastal sand dune native flora and fauna habitat at risk of erosion, or of further erosion.

The initiative is focused on the conservation of coastal sand dune native flora and fauna habitat at risk of erosion on coastal Crown Land between St Leonards and Marengo. The Initiative will also engage secondary school students on the Bellarine and Surf Coast through a Dunecare program that will build student and local community stewardship for local dune conservation and protection.

The Coastal Management Grants Program will provide funding to coastal public land managers to deliver on ground works to protect and remediate fragile coastal dune systems that support native flora and fauna habitat.

The Coastal Management Grants Program aims to:

• Strategically prioritise coastal dune sites to protect and remediate fragile coastal dune systems that support native flora and fauna habitat; specifically White-footed Dunnart, Southern Brown Bandicoot, Swamp Antechinus and Coastal Moonah Woodlands.
• Identify coastal dune systems vulnerable to erosion
• Support threatened species outcomes, protect cultural heritage values, and mitigate coastal erosion to protect those values
• Utilise traditional methods to manage access, remediate erosion hotspots using minor restoration works, including but not limited to, fencing, revegetation, and pest plant animal control
• Explore new and innovative approaches to manage small scale erosion using appropriate revegetation species and stabilization techniques.

Successful Projects

The Coastal Management Grants Program is providing $842K to support 11 on ground works projects on coastal public land. The projects collectively support environmental management of 345 hectares of coastal crown land along approximately 20 km of priority coastal dunes systems vulnerable to erosion. 

They support key biodiversity and threatened species values such as White-footed Dunnart, Southern-Brown Bandicoot and Coastal Moonah Woodlands. The full list of successful projects, can be found here.

Coastal public land managers are investing an additional $564K into management of these sites.

This project is support by the Corangamite CMA, through funding from the Australian Government’s Environment Restoration Fund. This project will run until 2023.