LOG-JAMS AND TURTLES

Jock Hansen revegetates landscapes in and around Mackay where he’s lived and worked for more than a decade. The ‘green’ in his company’s name, Mackay Green Solutions, is all about making a positive long-term difference in a region that’s booming thanks to coal mining and a growing sea-change population – a boom that’s put the pressure on to look after the landscape.

Planting the log jamsTake the work that’s being done along the banks of the O’Connell River to the north of Mackay. Restoration is necessary thanks to the fact that there’s little existing vegetation in parts to hold the banks in place, especially in wet weather.

“When we get 300ml of rain overnight during the wet season, the ground’s already saturated so there’s nowhere for it to go.”

One result is a swollen river with velocity that pulls the banks away. Another is poor water quality thanks to the silt being dragged along. This has negative spin-off effects on fish and the Great Barrier Reef just offshore.

This ranks as a tricky project as getting plants to grow well on river banks is always a complex process. In this case, man-made ‘log jams’ were constructed, set at key points to slow the river flow and act as a buffer during big water events. Jock and his team have planted the area out with a thousand tubes so that a little over a year later, a riparian corridor is starting to take hold.

Into the pure sandAnother project to challenge Jock is planted into pure dune sand.

“The site’s six hectares of foreshore in town sits as a buffer between residents and the beach. The existing vegetation had been poisoned and cleared to maximise the ocean views and this lead to problems as it’s a turtle nesting site.”

Without the screen of vegetation, the residential lighting is disorienting the turtles and disrupting their egg laying. It’s also an issue as dune and weather erosion will impact on these homes in the longer-term.

To find out what approach Jock took, click here for the full version. And it worked thanks to some help from TerraCottem which took water from the sky or scheduled hand watering and kept it available for the growing plants. It’s also given the sand a significant nutrient boost.

“We’ve lost between three and four per cent which is very acceptable, and these were mostly undersized stock or disturbed by animals.”

Fingers crossed the disturbance is all down to the return of the broody turtles.

Images (top to bottom): The log jam stabilises the river bank, slowing the water down in peak flow periods and creating natural habitat for river wildlife; Planting into pure sand is tough but you can get results like this if you know what you’re doing and you don’t take short cuts.

TerraCottem & the TC AdvantageTC Advantage is a package deal. It's about supplying TerraCottem, along with all the training, technical specification and compliance needed to turn a tricky project into a genuine long-term success. So when anyone has a turf, street tree, revegetation or whatever project to tackle, bringing in the TC Advantage expertise means you get: advice on which TerraCottem product to specify; training so that it's applied for maximum benefit; and monitoring to ensure compliance within the project's specs.