The Shoalhaven Riverwatch mangrove nursery is one of a kind - here's how it became a runaway success

Inside the green picket fence, 3,000 tiny mangrove plants grow from seeds collected right here in the Shoalhaven.

They're destined for locations all over the New South Wales coast, where they will play a vital role in restoring coastal ecosystems.

Not a bad effort, from a band of local volunteers.

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Shoalhaven Riverwatch is the team behind the mangrove nursery.

Volunteers have spent 25 years restoring riverbanks and mangrove forests in the Shoalhaven.

Their nursery is believed to be the only one of it's kind in the state.

Shoalhaven Riverwatch project manager Peter Jirgens said the nursery has become self sustaining - as has the local mangrove ecosystem.

They are thriving, and making a huge difference in repairing the environment.

"[Locals] Charlie Weir and John Taylor really kicked it along in the early years - they planted around 90,000 mangroves at the time, and 25,000 casuarinas on the riverbanks," Mr Jirgens said.

"What's happening now, 20 to 25 years later, those mangrove trees are now dropping thousands of seeds into the river.

"They're floating up and down the river, and a seed will propagate in any vacant spots.

"We find that we don't need to do much more planting along the [Shoalhaven] riverbanks, which is great."

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When settlers arrived in the Shoalhaven, mangrove forests were whittled away by grazing cattle - something the area had never seen before.

For about a century, there were few mangroves growing in the Shoalhaven, and the flow-on effects to the local environment compounded.

As the re-planted mangroves have established themselves, the Shoalhaven River environment has begun to heal: all kinds of marine life and birds are thriving once more, and riverbanks are held in place by the trees' root systems.

The combined efforts over the decades have created an entire wildlife corridor just outside of Nowra.

As an added bonus, the mangroves are even cleaning up our atmosphere, Mr Jirgens said.

"We know that mangroves fixate more carbon than any other tree on the planet... it's one of the best species to plant if we want to do something for the planet," he said.

"We're also stabilising and producing a really established ecosystem, as it was a couple of hundred years ago."

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With great strides made locally, Riverwatch's efforts have been noticed further afield: they've been called upon several times for their valuable trees.

The nursery essentially sustains itself for free - volunteers collect mangrove seeds annually and propagate them.

So Shoalhaven Riverwatch sends its mangroves up and down the coast where they're needed.

In recent years they've lent a hand everywhere from Sydney to Pambula.

"We've been providing mangroves to Sydney Harbour, and the Georges River in Sydney; to the Minnamurra River in a contract with Sydney Water, because they had destroyed a lot of mangroves trying to repair a water main; to Jervis Bay and Currambene Creek; and to the Clyde River, when the Batemans Bay bridge was replaced," Mr Jirgens said.

"We're the only ones that we know of that provide mangroves on the whole of the New South Wales coastline."

So why do they do it?

Like many community groups, Shoalhaven Riverwatch is entirely run by volunteers.

They have about 100 people on the books, with an average of 25-30 able to attend each working bee.

According to Mr Jirgens, a passion for the environment is what drives them, first and foremost.

On top of that, it's the camaraderie.

"People do lots of good things for the community, whether it's a men's shed, or sporting teams, or community activities - they're all really good," Mr Jirgens said.

"This is just another community thing that we like to do, and will do while we physically still can."

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