Alcoa Foundation commits over $300,000 in funding for Harvey River restoration and monitoring project

More than $300,000 in funding is set to be contributed to Murdoch University’s Harry Butler Institute over the next three years to help it with environmental work on the Harvey River.

The Alcoa Foundation announced the contribution earlier this month, which will see the Institute continue its contributions in restoration and monitoring project to reverse degradation of the South West waterway.

The grant will be used by the Institue to build on works by Greening Australia over the past three years on the river’s lower reaches.

Foundation president Caroline Rossignol said it was pleasing to see the program maintained.

“The Harry Butler Institute has been involved in delivery of various aspects of the program over the past three years and given the success of the current Alcoa Foundation partnership with Greening Australia — which has seen some very positive results to date — we are delighted to continue our support,” she said.

The project has included the Harvey River Restoration Taskforce, Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, scientists, community members and traditional owners working together to return the river to a more natural state.

More than 15,000 seedlings have been planted along the Harvey River since 2020, with 27 big log structures also installed in one river section to mimic fallen trees and create cooler water for aquatic life during summer.

The additional funding brings the Alcoa Foundation’s total contributions to the Harvey River’s restoration to more than $750,000.

Institute aquatic ecosystems deputy director Stephen Beatty said a key part of the program was pre and post monitoring of the aquatic fauna at the restoration sites and comparisons with control sites.

“Our research team commenced monitoring in 2021, just prior to the restoration, and this funding will ensure we can determine longer term ecological changes,” he said.

A significant increase in macroinvertebrates has been recorded at the restored site, alongside the detection of smooth marron which were thought to have been lost from the channelised section of the Harvey River.

“Marron like to live around submerged wood so the structures that have been introduced to the river provide valuable habitat for them,” Mr Beatty said.

“It was exciting to have detected them at the structures following their installation.”