Coastwest - helping communities to care for the WA Coast

Coastwest Grants Funded Projects 2007

Coastwest grants help revegetate, rehabilitate WA beaches

Alannah MacTiernan
Minister for Planning and Infrastructure

A total of 16 community groups and local governments will share over $700,000 to carry out extensive revegetation and rehabilitation work on beaches and dunes along Western Australia's coastline.

Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the grants ranged between  $7,000 and $118,835 for projects on metropolitan and regional beaches and most involved co-operation between volunteers and local governments or other coastal authorities.

“Coastwest grants directly support the implementation of the State Coastal Planning Policy, by funding community groups to identify, plan and carry out improvement work,” Ms MacTiernan said.

“The largest grant will fund the Perth Coastal Biodiversity Project, a far-ranging program to rehabilitate and strengthen vegetation communities in so-called ‘Priority One’ sites along the length of the metropolitan coastline – areas deemed to have high-integrity vegetation values.

“The project will engage five local governments from Joondalup to Rockingham, working collaboratively with the Swan Catchment Council and numerous community groups.

“Two significant grants are for removing a beach stormwater drain to improve water quality on Rockingham beaches and for a major dune rehabilitation project at Coogee Beach.

“It is a sad indictment of human behaviour that one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed in Australia each year by marine debris. A grant of $36,730 will support a South-West marine debris project to address this problem in the Capes area.”

The Minister said other grants would support dune revegetation and stabilisation and improvements to coastal paths at D'Entrecasteaux National Park, Geraldton, Kwinana, North Mullaloo, Prevelly and on Rottnest.

“One group, the Friends of Marmion Marine Park, has won a grant to create an educational resource for teaching children about coastal ecosystems and how to conserve and protect them,” she said.