Restoration Plan

 

  

 

The principal objective is to restore natural oyster reef habitat in the Noosa Estuary. This requires the
addition of suitable hard substrate for oyster spat to settle, and allowing natural recruitment and reef-
formation processes to recover to areas that historically supported oyster reefs.

The oyster settlement substrate will comprise oyster reef restoration units. These units are made from
the most suitable recruitment material - oyster shells held together by a natural coir fibre bag. The
units are raised above the muddy and sandy beds, thereby mimicking the vertical relief of the original
oyster reefs to facilitate natural recruitment processes (Figure 5).

We expect that natural recruitment processes will cement the dead shell together and form part of the
mosaic of habitats within the estuary including both soft and hard structural habitat types, thereby
creating a structurally diverse mosaic of habitats that is predicted to be beneficial to a range of fish
species, including species of harvested in commercial and recreational fisheries (e.g. yellowfin bream,
estuary cod, tailor, mangrove jack, and moses perch).

The project is restricted to the Noosa River estuary as this is the area funded by the Noosa Biosphere
Reserve Foundation through the Noosa Council’s environment levy.

 

   

The locations for the deployment of oyster teef restoration units have been selected based on + five
main criteria:

1) Historical Area Match:
All sites are located within the area that have historically supported oyster beds before heavy
commercial dredging dramatically reduced their extent to the point of local extirpation;

2) Depth Range
All sites fall within the depth range of current oyster reef growth in SE Queensland;

3) Recruitment Success
All sites have recruitment of spat as shown in our pilot studies;

4) No Recreational Displacement
Sites are located to minimize any interference with existing recreational activities;

5) Safe for Boating
All sites are located above Lowest astronomical tide in areas where vessel movement is
restricted (i.e. outside navigational markers),

Table 1. Planned oyster reef restoration sites in the Noosa River estuary (site numbers correspond to
site numbers in Figure 4 (GDA94, Zone 56J).

 

Site number Easting Northing
1 504268 7082455
2 504555 7081863
3 504293 7081482
4 504441 7080714
5 504960 7080594
6 505112 7080859
7 505433 7080679
8 506151 7080584
9 507055 7081187
10 507134 7081732
14 508037 7080212
12 507660 7079935
13 507103 7078796
14 507105 7078683
16 506176 7075586

 

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