A Long History of Coastcare on the Mid Coast – an interview with Diana Seghers
Diana Seghers has a history with Coastcare that few can boast – over 40 years of tackling the weeds that threaten the native vegetation of Old Bar. Helen Kemp (Local Landcare Coordinator – Coast) sat down recently with Diana for a chat about the history of caring for the Old Bar coast.
Let’s start with how long you’ve lived in Old Bar, and when you started Dunecare? I came here in about 1980 and more or less just started doing a bit of Dunecare myself by just pulling out a few weeds on my own. And then I got in touch with John Sorby who was interested in starting Dunecare here at Old Bar, as his brother had already started it at Hat Head. This would have been in the early nineties, and we would have only had ten people involved at most.
Oh, so you would have been pulling weeds by yourself for about ten years! Yes, more or less. Just pulling weeds out when I went for walks. I wasn’t that conversant with what weeds were here on the coast, but I just had a few that I recognised.
So where did you first come across the idea of weeds being a problem for natural vegetation? I think I’ve always thought of that because the weeds are a problem in your own garden, and in natural areas there’s nothing to take weeds out. And the birds spread the weeds by taking the seeds and dropping them everywhere, so it’s worse than what your own garden is. And I just love the bush, so that was it.
It’s interesting because a lot of people don’t think of that, they think that as long as it’s green it’s fine. Well, I think I knew the weeds on the edge of the bush, where you find the most. We didn’t go into the bush that much because we didn’t know what weeds were there. Until John Sorby and I got books and we read up and found out what weeds there were.
Were they specifically bush regeneration books? Yes, books on the weeds you find in the bush. Not that there were many weeds back then, in those days. The Bitou bush hadn’t come down yet, that didn’t come in until they closed the sand mines. They used to mine sand along the beach, and when they finished the sand mining they put Bitou all over the sand hills so they wouldn’t blow away. And that was the beginning of Bitou bush.
And you remember that happening? Oh yes! That was while we were here.
Did you know that could be a problem? No. I didn’t even know what Bitou bush was, we’d never had it at Old Bar before.
So you just assumed they knew what they were doing. Yes, that’s right. They just put dead bushes over the sand hills to stop the sand blowing away, but the dead bushes had seeds in them and that’s where the seeds came from. And that was the start of it.
Wow. And so how long after that did you realise that Bitou would be a problem? Did you start seeing it popping up? I’d say a couple of years.
So Manning Coastcare was the bringing together of already existing groups like Old Bar Dunecare and Harrington Coastcare in 1995. How aware were you of the wider Landcare movement at the time? Not much. I was just very centred on what I was doing here. I was involved in five different groups, including Little Athletics and Old Bar P&C. I was just focussed on what was happening locally, not so much on what was going on outside.
Over time, did you become aware of Landcare being a bigger organisation and movement? Yes, I did. Over the years I realised how big it was. But I just thought “oh, I’ll stand back from that.” Haha!
But you had a sense there were people around the country doing similar work to what you were doing? Yes! It was good. Even though we called ourselves Dunecare I assumed it was all the same thing.
I remember when we were talking at the Old Bar Christmas party you said you’d seen the dunes on Old Bar beach basically disappear…. Oh yes! All along the beach there were just huge sand hills, right down to past the Meridian. They were just huge sand hills, and the sand went out further. You’d go down onto the beach and you’d have nearly 50 or 100 metres to where the water was. And that’s where all the stones on the beach have come from, they were all under the huge sand hills. They were as tall as this house.
So that was the eighties? Yes, the eighties, early nineties. I can’t remember when we had that big storm that started to take the sandhills away… I’d say it was the late nineties, early 2000’s that we really started to notice them going.
Did you notice any impacts from the loss of the dunes? Any impacts on the vegetation or anything else? There were definitely more weeds. And the loss of birds on the beach! We used to walk along the beach and there’d be 20 or 30 seagulls. You can walk along the beach now and not see one! I think that was because of the dunes. They had somewhere to fly into, and now they don’t have anywhere to fly to get refuge or anything like that. Whether they had their nests up in the dunes as well, I don’t know.
Wow, that’s amazing! It’s so interesting these impacts that you don’t think of, and they just happen, and it can even be easy to not notice. Yes! We did notice the loss of the seagulls, though, because we used to walk around them on the beach to avoid disturbing them, so we noticed them no longer being there.
How do you feel about the fact that Dunecare/ Coastcare is still happening here at Old Bar? I think it’s important. I do. I really think it’s important. I do as much as I can. I’ll be able to get back into it next year. I’ve done a little bit, actually, on my own like I’ve always done. If I walk past something, I can’t resist it.
Haha! Please take it easy! No, I do. But if I see anything, maybe Asparagus or something like that, I dig it out. Other stuff I maybe just pick the flowers if the roots are too big. But Asparagus, I have a thing for Asparagus!
Good on you, it’s a shocker that one!
But how do you think Old Bar in general has benefitted from Coastcare? Well, the weeds aren’t there as much, but on the whole, I don’t think half the people in Old Bar would even realise. Like the newcomers, they don’t know what it was like before.
And have you made good friendships through Coastcare? Oh yes!
Now in her eighties and currently recovering from a knee replacement, Diana is looking forward to getting back into the bush with the Old Bar Coastcare Group in 2025. Thank you Diana!
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
