The City of Bayswater has released the Maylands Samphire Flats Environmental Management Plan, as part of its long-term commitment to restore its 11km stretch of the Swan River foreshore.
The City and community group Friends of Maylands Samphires started working together to restore the site in 2012, in order to initially undertake weed control and support revegetation in the saltmarsh.
Since then, the site was identified as containing a federally listed threatened ecological community ‘Subtropical and Temperate Coastal Saltmarsh’, which cemented the City's commitment to work with the community group to prepare a long-term conservation plan.
The 10-year conservation plan, completed this August, provides a practical restoration framework that will aim to address key threats to the site such as climate change and invasive weeds.
The plan identifies non-endemic plants as the main threat to the natural habitat, and one of the key actions of the plan will be to restore five zones of the wetland area through weed control and planting of native species.
City of Bayswater Mayor Cr Dan Bull said the City was committed to creating long-term sustainable success in the area.
“The City is incredibly grateful to be working alongside community group Friends of Maylands Samphires, to help protect and restore the federally listed threatened ecological community,” said Cr Bull.
“I’m extremely pleased to have a management plan in place to support the native flora and fauna of this very important site.”
Friends of Maylands Samphires member Jo Bower said riverside saltmarshes were an important natural ecosystem to protect and conserve.
The group has been awarded several grants to undertake weed control and revegetation, with plants propagated from seeds and cuttings collected at the site.
"Maylands Samphire Flats is a very special site, with four main samphire species and the Friends of Maylands Samphires is very pleased to have the management plan to guide future conservation work," said Ms Bower.
"The samphire plants provide food and shelter for insects and small animals which then feed a great variety of bird life. The plants are also good filters of pollutants and nutrients like phosphates and nitrates, preventing them from entering the Swan River."
Full details of the Maylands Samphire Flats plan can be found here.