Author: Todd Dudley, President, North East Bioregional Network

The site in 2014

The St Helens Sports Complex is located on the outskirts of the town of St Helens, north east Tasmania. While it is primarily set aside for sporting activities, it has viable remnant patches of bushland within its environs.

In 2014 the local council (Break O’Day Council) responded to a complaint by an unknown person and proceeded to destroy a remnant roadside area containing a threatened forest community Eucalyptus viminalis (White Gum) forest. The works included cutting down all of the trees and clearing of the understorey back to bare earth. Unfortunately, these kind of ill considered and ignorant assaults on native vegetation occur all too often across Australia.

In this case our group, the North East Bioregional Network (NEBN), went to the media (The Examiner newspaper) after the Council failed to address concerns that we raised. As a result of this increased public scrutiny, in January 2015 the Council agreed to rehabilitate the site offering to cover the affected area in topsoil and plant trees. In response NEBN put together a rehabilitation plan which included a recommendation to leave the site as is for a while to gauge the level of natural regeneration that we anticipated would occur.

To our delight, over 60 species of native plants regrew on the site over the next few years covering all the different stratums including Eucalyptus viminalis, Eucalyptus amygdalina, Eucalyptus ovata, Exocarpus cupressiformis, Allocasuarina littoralis, Acacia genistifolia, Epacris impressa, Stylidium graminifolium, Astroloma humifusum, Burchardia umbellata, Patersonia occidentalis and Themeda triandra to name a few.

Because of the extensive soil disturbance some weeding has been required mainly consisting of hand removing grasses such as Paspalum dilitatum, Holcus lanatus and Sporobulus africanus as well as cut and painting a few blackberries but overall relatively minimal maintenance has been needed.

To avoid any repetition of the previous damage the Council agreed to erect signs to ensure that the site was not inadvertently subject to any future disturbance by random contractors or Council workers.

In 2022 our group made a submission to the Council regarding the importance of maintaining the natural values of the Sports Complex and avoiding ad hoc damage to flora and fauna habitat. Subsequently the Council voted in favour of engaging a landscape architect to undertake a landscaping and vegetation management plan for the Sports Complex to ensure that the Complex’s natural values are identified and properly managed. The plan has yet to be initiated but it is still proposed to be produced.

This project demonstrated the value of using assisted natural regeneration approaches and that even small remnants can in some cases still have high levels of ecological resilience.

In 2017: Natural Regeneration occurring 2024 Further growth of vegetation by natural regeneration.