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Stunning Littoral Rainforest at Lakes
Tyers forest park, one of the areas to receive funds under our Caring
For Our Country grant. Pic: Trish Fox
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Look behind you...The
next time you pause to admire the ocean from Lakes Entrance, turn around
and look behind at the steep cliffs of the North Arm and Kalimna
There you will see one of Australia’s rarest and most threatened
rainforests – some of only 279 ha left in the state. This community was
last year listed as ‘critically endangered’ under the Australian
Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Littoral Rainforest has the misfortune to occur where most of us seem to
want to live: within two kilometres of the coast. It is also found near
large salt water bodies, such as estuaries.
The most
extensive (around 85ha) and some of the oldest Littoral Rainforest in
Victoria occurs around the Gippsland Lakes. Part of this complex occurs
in the Lakes Entrance area on the marginal bluff from the mouth of
Maringa Creek through to the end of Creighton Street in Kalimna and up
the North Arm.In Lakes Entrance, Littoral Rainforest is starting to
emerge in several areas that were cleared in the past, allowing
residents to have a glimpse of what their town once looked like. On the
Club Spit opposite Number 1 on the Esplanade, at the Jemmys Point sand
flat between the North Arm Bridge and the Narrows, this rainforest type
is reappearing. It is also found in Metung, Nungurner, Marlo, Lake Tyers
and along the Mitchell, Nicholson, Tambo, Genoa and Wallagaraugh Rivers.
Obviously the pressure on these areas is intense. In East Gippsland the
human population is projected to increase from approximately 39 000 in
2001 to 47 000 by 2031, an increase of approximately 20%. Population
growth is likely to be concentrated around Paynesville and Lakes
Entrance where Littoral Rainforest occurs. Visitor disturbance in
conservation areas includes soil compaction and disturbance, erosion
from foot, cycle, trail bike and four wheel drive tracks, the
introduction of pests and the creation of new planned and unplanned
tracks. The other major threat to Littoral Rainforest are the so-called
Transformer Weeds such as Cape Ivy, Bitou Bush, Lantana and Madeira
Vine.
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Rainforest ecologist Bill Peel surveyed 251 sites and found a link
between weed invasion and proximity to human activities. He observed
that weed invasion alone (i.e. without any other disturbance) in the
Marlo Estuary, Victoria, destroyed a third of the littoral rainforest
stand whilst the remaining two thirds was in severe decline. The
ecological community, in this area, could disappear in the next five to
ten years without proper intervention, he concluded. As we featured in
our last issue, feral animals are also a problem. Grazing and browsing
by feral deer (Sambar and Hog deer) has been shown to prevent
regeneration of littoral rainforest canopy and understorey species and
creates gaps in the vegetation which allows colonisation by weeds. This
has happened near Genoa River where the vegetation gaps have been
colonised by Cape Ivy and dense thickets of Madeira Winter-cherry. These
weeds are seriously contributing to the collapse of the existing
littoral rainforest patches through the smothering of shrubs and young
trees. Where the ranges of the two deer overlap, patches of littoral
rainforest, for example Marl Island on Lake Tyers, have been destroyed.
And as if that was not enough, Littoral Rainforest is further at risk
because of the small size of the remaining patches. There are 108
patches in East Gippsland and most (91%) are less than 10 hectares. None
is greater than 100 ha. The fragmented and linear nature of the patches,
their small size and large edge area show that they are prone to
disturbance, including loss of the fringing protection vegetation such
as Warm Temperate Rainforest, and thus are at high risk of extinction.
Article sources:Littoral Rainforest and
coastal vine thickets listing advice. Threatened Species Scientific
Committee.Peel, B. 2007.
Rainforest in the
East Gippsland coastal townships of Lakes Entrance, Metung, Nungurner,
Marlo, Mallacoota, and Lake Tyers. Authorised by East Gippsland
Rainforest Conservation Management Network
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