Saturday, Mar 01, 2008 at 17:51
My family has been holidaying in the Swan Reach / Nildottie area for well over 30 years now. These days we have a holiday house just up river from
Big Bend.
The Murray
About 25 years ago a few of us got in touch with a few Govt. agencies and asked what we could do; plant trees, get rid of stuff, erosion control, etc. At the time I was working for Dept. of Primary Industries and had access to lots of info. We learned a lot about the ecology of the river which we now pass on to our kids.
I reckon we have planted over a thousand red gums in areas that are subjected to flooding seasonal during. The idea apparently is to try and reduce land salinity during the drier times. We thin out masses of natural seedlings and replant them - no cost to anyone, just a bit of hard work. Some die but some go on to become good size trees. We also clean up the glass and other rubbish that gets left behind on the banks by some irresponsible campers.
Yes, quite a few people do their bit with bank retention, revegetation and so on. Unfortunately, with the low water below Lock 1, many significant red gums are dying and falling into the river. Not only are we losing important trees that help the river survive, they now pose major navigation hazards. We really neeed to plant more trees at the waters edge to replace them. BTW, at the moment our level is -0.37m. The normal pool level is +0.92m.
Sorry about the long winded answer but as I said earlier, we are passionate about the state of the river. We can all do our bit, we don't have to wait for the scrot's in government to do something.
Cheers, Louie
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