Casuarina Coastal Reserve Landcare Group (CCRLG) was formed in 1997 by a group of dedicated locals who wanted to protect and revegetate degraded parts of this important habitat corridor and refuge. CCRLG works closely with the NT Government’s Parks and Wildlife Branch who manage the Reserve.
Twenty-five years on and the group is still working hard and making a difference in a good way.
Casuarina Coastal Reserve Landcare Group works with Parks and Wildlife to manage two revegetation sites in the Reserve. We hold working bees on the 3rd Sunday of each month at or near the revegetation sites. Where we:
The group maintains a Facebook page that includes details of its activities and interesting plant and animal features of the Reserve, such as nesting turtles and migratory shorebirds.
Casuarina Coastal Reserve is a narrow strip of land that stretches between Rapid
Creek and Buffalo Creek and includes Sandy Creek and the nearby sea. The marine section of the Reserve includes Darraba Nungalinya, an important Larrakia sacred site.
Casuarina Coastal Reserve is the NT’s newest national park. It is already the most visited park or reserve in the NT with over 1.4million visits every year. Lots of Darwin residents live close to the Reserve and enjoy its many natural features. The Reserve has monsoon vine forests, rainforests, mangroves, paperbark swamps, woodland and dune habitats. Sea turtles nest on the beach and large numbers of migratory shorebirds, some of which are endangered, roost on the beach, enroute to breeding grounds in the far northern hemisphere or summer resting in southern Australia.
The ‘Beach Block’ is an area of sand dunes fronting onto Darwin Harbour and just past the end of Daribah Road.
Uncontrolled fires, Cyclone Tracy and sand mining had severely degraded the natural values of the site leaving weedy grasses and very few trees. CCRLG re-planted the ‘Beach Block’ in the early 2000s and added more trees in 2023. The area is now home to a much more diverse group of insects, birds, plants and other animals. Sightings at the Beach Block include goannas, nesting Pardalotes, wallabies and tree snakes.
The ‘Moth Block’ is on the edge of the forest behind the PowerWater pumping station on Rocklands Drive, Tiwi.
CCRLG began revegetation work at the Moth Block as part of a Commonwealth funded project in 2011 to support habitat for endangered species. Atlas Moths (Attacus wardii) were chosen as the focus for recovery efforts because they were once common in the Darwin area and are now endangered. Caterpillars of this impressive moth feed on three plants so they were specifically included in the revegetation. The planting was designed like a golfing fairway to allow for an easy flyway for adult moths that can have a wingspan of 22cm. In 2024 an Atlas Moth was found in a Rapid Creek backyard, perhaps its caterpillar had enjoyed a feed at the Moth Block. The trees at the Moth Block have grown well and there are signs of natural regeneration of some of the host plants for the famous moth.
Members of CCRLG have contributed to two significant weed mapping projects. In 2021 Dr David Liddle led a community mapping project to document the infestation of Gamba Grass (Andropogon gayanus) and in 2024/25 a second project documented the occurrence of Ivy Gourd in the Reserve. These maps are important management tools.
CCRLG now works in partnership with Parks and Wildlife to manage the Adopt a Spot Program. Community members have taken on responsibility for small compartments of land in the Reserve where there are isolated outliers of Gamba Grass. They document the occurrence or absence of Gamba and grub out plants. Coupled with Parks and Wildlife and the Gamba Army’s work on the denser stands of Gamba this approach is already yielding benefits for the Reserve’s habitats.
Sandy Creek is within Casuarina Coastal Reserve, so CCRLG is part of the Urban Waterways Project.
