But like many wetlands, they face growing pressures from climate change, urban growth and habitat loss. That’s why we’re now renewing the Western Port Ramsar Site Management Plan – to ensure the wetlands remain a thriving natural environment for generations to come.
The renewed plan will cover the next 7 years, and follow the Ramsar Convention’s principles of conservation and sustainable wetland management.
Over the past year we’ve developed a draft plan with input from experts and stakeholders – including researchers, environmental experts and local partners. This is based on the latest science, such as habitat monitoring, bird counts and water quality assessments.
Now it’s your turn to have your say on the plan before it’s finalised, and help shape how the wetlands are managed into the future. Read the Plan and submit your feedback by Thursday 4 December.
The Plan establishes five Resource Condition Targets, based on expert and local knowledge. These represent where we want or expect the condition of each priority value to be at the end of the Plan, and will help to assess its effectiveness.
Maintain the diversity and mosaic of habitats for the Ramsar site (calculated as rolling seven-year averages).
| Target | |
|---|---|
| Seagrass | > 14,000 hectares, with > 50% being medium-dense |
| Saltmarsh | > 1,100 hectares |
| Mangroves | > 1,700 hectares |
| Unvegetated intertidal sand/ mudflats | > 13,000 hectares |
Maintain abundance of indicator fish species above the following thresholds (fish per angler hour).
| Target | |
|---|---|
| Snapper (October-December) | 0.2 |
| Snapper (January-May) | 0.4 |
| King George Whiting | 0.7 |
| Sand flathead | 0.9 |
| Elephant fish | 0.1 |
Maintain abundance of waterbirds in each of the following guilds (calculated as a rolling five-year average of maximum annual count).
| Target | |
|---|---|
| Total waterbirds | > 20,000 |
| Migratory shorebirds | > 12,000 |
| Australasian shorebirds | > 1,100 |
| Ducks | > 1,300 |
| Fishers | > 600 |
| Gulls | > 1,300 |
| Large wading birds | > 1,300 |
| Swans | > 2,700 |
Maintain annual breeding of Australian pied oystercatcher and red-capped plover within the Ramsar site.
Annual presence of the following threatened waterbird species within the site:
| Strategy | Description |
|---|---|
| 1.1 | Reduce nutrient and sediment inflow: Support the implementation of riparian, in-stream and catchment works identified in the:
|
| 1.2 | Implement incentive schemes for urban and rural run-off through the Water Sensitive Urban Design program |
| 1.3 | Develop appropriate approaches for pollutant reduction and seagrass improvement, and trigger values (objectives) for water quality indicators |
| 1.4 | Investigate the sources, potential impact and mitigation strategies for toxicants entering Western Port through storm water drains and rivers |
| Strategy | Description |
|---|---|
| 2.1 | Implement strategies to address coastal erosion risks:
|
| 2.2 | Identify and implement opportunities for improving and enhancing habitat adaptation in response to the impacts of climate change within the Ramsar site and adjacent priority areas. |
| Strategy | Description |
|---|---|
| 3.1 | Implement methods for restoring seagrass and mangroves. |
| 3.2 | Identify priority locations of habitat loss in the Ramsar site due to human activity including vehicle damage, stock grazing, illegal dumping, direct vegetation removal and implement or improve enforcement of existing laws. |
| 3.3 | Develop and implement an incentive program for adjacent landholders to fence waterways, mangrove and saltmarsh areas to restrict stock access and investigate opportunities for land acquisition. |
| 3.4 | Continue to implement pest animal control programs (cat, fox, rat, dog, pig) in priority waterbird roosting and nesting sites within the Ramsar site. |
| 3.5 | Continue to implement pig, goat and deer control programs within the Ramsar site boundary to limit impacts on saltmarsh. |
| 3.6 | Continue to implement Spartina control programs within the Ramsar site. |
| 3.7 | Conduct regular surveys and implement control actions for new and emerging salt tolerant weeds. |
| 3.8 | Develop and implement a marine pest strategy for Western Port. |
| 3.9 | Investigate the potential to use dredged material to renourish beach habitat for foraging and nesting birds. |
| Strategy | Description |
|---|---|
| 4.1 | Investigate the impacts of bait harvesting (including bait pumping) on invertebrate populations and shorebirds. |
| 4.2 | Investigate the severity and extent of impact recreational fishing is having on the bryozoan reefs. |
| 4.3 | Develop and implement a response plan for addressing risks associated with avian diseases. |
| Strategy | Description |
|---|---|
| 5.1 | Develop and implement a Western Port Ramsar community engagement strategy that considers:
|
| 5.2 | Maintain the Western Port Ramsar Site webpage (DEECA) and the process for stakeholder involvement via updates and links. |
Watch the following video to learn about the ecological values that make this place special, and how we care for them. For more information on Western Port, visit the Melbourne Water website.
Heremaia Titoko (Melbourne Water, Partnerships Coordinator Ramsar, Waterways & Catchment Services)
Andrew Morrison (Melbourne Water, Senior Asset Planner, Service Programs)
Gavin Brock (Melbourne Water, Waterways & Land Officer)
[music]
Heremaia: We care about Ramsar sites they’re a part of a global agreement to look after sites that are important for migratory birds.
They fly over here from a long way away and they rest here and breed and feed for their big journey home.
Andrew: Western Port is one of the best birdwatching sites in all of Australia. Yes, I’m biased, but certainly at any one time you could see 100 species of waterbirds and shorebirds.
Gavin: The Ramsar site is recognised internationally, through the Ramsar Treaty as an important wetland for migratory birds. We need to manage the environment so that they can get what they need in order to turn around and go back again.
Heremaia: This mangrove extent that we have in Western Port is one of the most southern extents of mangroves in the Southern hemisphere. The whole Western Port Ramsar site is almost 60,000 hectares, and the mangroves take up almost one sixth of that area.
So when the tide goes down and you have salt marsh and mudflats, that can be almost half the area exposed.
The most surprising thing I learnt about mangroves and this site is that the mangroves are only one species.
So the mangroves are an amazing part, in fact, on of the vital parts of the ecosystems of Western Port, because they provide the habitat around the shoreline where them all the migratory birds come and feed and rest.
So when they get here, like we all do when we get home, we want somewhere nice, somewhere that’s inviting somewhere that we can fuel up and rest. And that’s exactly what these sites are for. For the migratory birds.
Andrew: So the work we do is really critical because part of Western Port include threatened vegetation communities. So there is an obligation that we help protect and conserve these areas and manage and mitigate threats to those communities. But like anything that’s potentially going to be met by barriers to that transition.
So things like roads, pipes and culverts, urban areas, residential areas have got no room to basically retreat.
Heremaia: Unfortunately due to agricultural influences and people moving around the coastline with developments, the mangroves have restricted themselves to smaller and smaller areas.
Gavin: Spartina is a weedy grass, so it's a bit like Kikuyu or Couch. It impacts on the feeding areas for the migratory shore birds that inhabit Ramsar site that give it its main value.
Andrew: So we're out here on Western Port, which is on beautiful Bunurong country.
I think we're really fortunate to work at Melbourne Water.
We're super lucky to have three internationally recognised wetlands within our region.
From a global perspective, these sites are so critical.
Heremaia: At Melbourne Water, as part of my role to help manage and coordinate our partners to restore Western Port. We use the latest science and research, we work with communities, we work with councils as well as a lot of land care groups.
Andrew: Western Port has Ramsar Site Management Plan, which basically sets out the strategic framework. It outlines the values, but it also outlines some of the threats and challenges. So we use that plan to establish programmes to help counter some of those threats and challenges.
So we have really, really accurate mapping of where we think under certain climate scenarios that we're going to see additional inundation or prolonged inundation so we can start to plan for that.
Working with Traditional Owners has been a really important part of the role of site coordinator for Western Port, through self-determination, really be guided by what's important to Bunurong people and we look to make that fit into what we're trying to achieve here at Western Port.
And we've been really fortunate to have a great relationship with the Bunurong Land Council who we're partnered on a number of Ramsar projects over the last few years.
We've got a really large extent of mature mangroves we're trying to put in the next generation.
We ultimately work with Bass Coast Land Care Network and other organisations.
We’re really about collaboration, trying to come up with ways where there's multiple benefits, but ultimately we're here to make sure that the sites are maintained and protected.
We have multi year partnership agreements with a range of stakeholders including Parks Victoria, Phillip Island Nature Parks, land care groups and other community groups to help restore the site.
Gavin: So I suppose it would be the hope to continue that that control of Spartan and hopefully we can remove it from from Western Port and be a great achievement to do something like that, but at least to to knock it back to a situation where it's not impacting greatly on the Ramsar site.
Heremaia: We have migratory birds that keep coming here, they keep resting, they keep feeding and that everyone gets to enjoy this beautiful sight.
Andrew: I just hope that we continue to build a community and a network of people that really value Western Port and want to see it thriving.
As long as there's people interested in the site, then I think we've got something to work with moving forward.
At the end of the day, we're here to coordinate a collective group that have the vision to protect and conserve.
[Melbourne Water logo]
[end transcript]
Melbourne Water respectfully acknowledges the Bunurong, Gunaikurnai,
Taungurung, Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung peoples as the Traditional
Owners and Custodians of the land and water on which we rely and operate.
We
pay our deepest respects to their Elders - past, present and emerging.
