By Luke Voogt
A $1.1 million boost will double the size of shellfish reef restoration efforts off Geelong and in Port Phillip Bay, The Nature Conservancy has announced.
The announcement follows the restoration of 2.5 hectares of reefs in Corio Bay and off St Kilda using discarded shells from restaurants.
The new funding boost would allow the Conservancy to increase the combined size of the “highly-successful” project to 5.5 hectares, its ocean lead Chris Gillies said.
“One of the new reefs will be our first on the Mornington Peninsula side of the bay,” Dr Gillies said.
“[Another] new site at 9ft Bank in Geelong Arm will trial a new restoration technique not attempted before in Australia.”
The “old” and “degraded” 9ft Bank was the closest formation to “a surviving shellfish reef in Victoria”, according to the conservancy’s communications director Tony Jupp.
Up to 99 per cent of original shellfish reefs that once covered about half the seafloor of Port Phillip Bay have been lost to over-exploitation, Mr Jupp said.
Over-harvesting, grinding shells for lime and pollution had severely depleted shellfish reefs, he said.
The conservancy plans to rebuild the reef back to its “former glory” using discarded shells from restaurants.
Last year Mr Jupp said the group’s Shuck Don’t Chuck recycling project had collected more than 137 tonnes of shells from five Geelong restaurants and Portarlington Mussel Festival.
“We’re already seeing octopuses and cuttlefish living within the new reefs and then there are other animals that come to eat those as well.”
The shellfish reefs provided cleaner water and increased habitats, meaning more fish for all, he said.
“We believe there are enough remnant Australian flat oysters in the area to naturally colonise the new recycled shell reef base without needing to add young hatchery-raised oysters, as we do elsewhere.”
The projects would help create more coastal jobs in marine-dependant industries, Mr Jupp said.
The efforts are part of the Nature Conservancy’s National Reef Building Project that aims to rebuild 60 reefs across southern Australia.
The funding includes $300,000 from the Ross Trust, $300,000 from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and $500,000 from the Victorian government.
