OzFish Richmond Chapter is working to reduce erosion, improve water quality, support native fish, and enhance recreational fishing in North Creek.
Community planting day hosted
More than 5,000 native trees and shrubs planted
More than 1.6 kilometres of healthy riverbank habitat restored
Restoring a degraded waterway
North Creek flows for 28 kilometres before joining the Richmond River, at Ballina, and is a popular and important recreational fishing location. For more than a third of its length, North Creek has been highly modified through land clearing and straightening for agricultural drainage and flood risk mitigation.
This has resulted in highly fragmented riparian vegetation and poor water quality in North Creek, which contributes to the Richmond River being one of the most degraded river systems in NSW. A key element of this condition is the poor state of the riparian vegetation in the area.
OzFish mobilised recreational fishing volunteers and partnered with the Australian Macadamia Society and landholders at Midgen Flat to address this challenge in the upper reaches of North Creek.
Taking action to replace invasive with native
The action taken by OzFish volunteers will enhance fish habitat in the upper reaches of North Creek while also benefiting water quality, ecological health, and recreational fishing outcomes further downstream and in the wider river system.
At a community planting day, volunteers played a part in planting more than 5,000 native trees and shrubs, including lilly pilly, cedar, and wattle. These replaced invasive weeds that had been removed by bush regeneration contractors.
This restored more than 1.6 kilometres of healthy habitat along the creek, providing an important source of shade, food, and shelter for native fish, while also shoring up the banks against erosion.
North Creek is home to native fish such as Australian bass, herring, and crayfish, as well as other wildlife including platypus, smooth back turtles, and short finned eels. It is also frequented by birds such as the jabiru, black duck, white breasted sea eagle, and several cormorant species.
By installing cattle exclusion fencing, the volunteers are also helping to protect the new vegetation from grazing and reduce erosion of the creek banks.
The project has the support of the Australian Macadamia Society and Floodplain Macadamia Group, which have a track record of encouraging and assisting watercourse improvements in the region.
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The project is funded by NSW Recreational Fishing Trust’s Habitat Action Grants and BCF – Boating, Camping, Fishing.
