History & Remediation at Moulting Lagoon

Blog post – Glenelg Nature Trust, 27 April 2022

TASMANIA’S CONVICT PAST AND SALTMARSH REMEDIATION WORKS COLLIDE AT LONG POINT, MOULTING LAGOON

As a further sequel to last month’s story about the commencement of saltmarsh restoration works adjacent to the Moulting Lagoon Ramsar site at Yard’s Hole, this month we’re taking a look at the early works completed next door at Long Point, a Tasmanian Land Conservancy reserve, which is also adjacent to Moulting Lagoon and contains some of the east coast’s most important saltmarsh habitat.

The convict past and land management impacts at Long Point

While unfortunately we won’t have the time to complete the level of in-depth research required to fully explore the early European occupation and colonial history of the site, we do know one important fact that emerged from that period – i.e. convict works completed at that time had a big impact on land management, especially the hydrology of the site, which has continued to influence its ecology until the present day. That is because this early colonial period resulted in the construction of a system of levee embankments across and around the saltmarsh at Long Point totalling about 2.4 km in length, as we explored in this story last year.

Read the full story here: Tasmania’s convict past and saltmarsh remediation works collide at Long Point, Moulting Lagoon – Nature Glenelg Trust.