Covenantor

Mohya and John Davies

Wetland conservation fighting climate change

Mohya Davies remembers when her son’s in-laws from Austria flew in to visit her family at their property in Foster. They put the visitors on their four-wheel bikes and drove them down to the coast that borders the property at dawn.   

“The kangaroos were coming off the sea wall next door where they’d camped during the night, and were bounding across the wetlands at sunrise. For people from Austria to see that was extraordinary,” says Mohya.

Why are wetlands important?

It’s all part of the magic that makes Mohya and husband John’s property so special. With views across the water to Wilson’s Promontory, the property is home to saltmarsh, mangroves and paperbark woodlands that are part of the internationally recognised Corner Inlet Ramsar wetland. This 67,000 ha area provides habitat for incredible numbers of wildlife, including threatened shorebirds that migrate between the Arctic and Australia every year. Sheltered waters provide nurseries for threatened fish such as Australian Grayling, and saltmarsh and mangroves draw carbon out of the atmosphere.

Settled by John’s grandfather, Mohya moved to the property after building a house in 1983 with two small children. Over the next 40 years they raised six children and farmed sheep and cattle on the land. The wetlands that bordered the farmland were always something they treated with respect.
“John’s father Bill didn’t want to invest in sea walls,” Mohya says. “He saw it as better to invest in land that didn’t need reclaiming from sea. John’s grandfather saw the value in the lowlands when at the time only the hills were seen as valuable.”   

Sea-level rise threat

Sea walls are one of the threats to the Corner Inlet wetlands, where the extent of saltmarsh and other intertidal habitats have been reduced by up to 45% over the past 250 years.

The Davies saw the stark difference in the health of the wetlands between their property and properties nearby with sea walls. Other threats include weeds, grazing, changes to water patterns and flow. Today, climate change poses the greatest threat to these coastal wetlands, with rising sea levels drowning habitat. 

Trust for Nature, in partnership with the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority and supported by the Victorian Government, is working with landholders like Mohya and John to protect and restore wetlands along the coast of Corner Inlet, giving this habitat the best chance to adapt to rising seas. Mohya recalls the moment when they realised something needed to be done to protect the wetlands. 
“Driving along we could see gaps in the paperbark trees through to the water and we thought ‘that’s not good’. We were acutely aware of the importance of the coastal habitat and when we noticed the deterioration we decided to protect it.”

Restoring wetlands

After fencing out cattle 20 years ago, the changes have been remarkable as the paperbark woodlands and wetlands have recovered. Now, Mohya and John are protecting the wetlands with a conservation covenant through Trust for Nature.  
“We’re very excited about the opportunity that Trust for Nature offers us because as we get older managing the weeds down by the shore will get more challenging. It’s something we should do for the environment and we’re not able to farm that part of the property. I see it as a symbiotic relationship between farming and conservation.” 
West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority is the Ramsar Site Coordinator working to prioritise actions to protect Ramsar values. This program is funded as part of the Victorian Government’s $248 million investment over four years (2020-2024) to improve the health of waterways and catchments across regional Victoria.