Posted on January 19, 2021
MALIBU—On January 13, the City of Malibu issued a press release on the Dune Restoration Project underway to protect and restore Dune Habitat at Zuma Beach.
The Malibu Living Shoreline Project is a multi-agency partnership with the city to restore coastal dune habitat. As the project broke ground mid-December 2020 at Zuma Beach near Zuma Lagoon in Malibu, the project is projected to start breaking ground on the second site Point Dume Beach in mid-January.
The project will restore three acres worth of beach and dune habitat starting from Zuma Beach to Point Dume Beach. The overall process will provide a cost-effective and low-impact solution to increase the resiliency of the sensitive coastal dune habitats.
The project is led by The Bay Foundation in partnership with the City of Malibu, Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, California State Coastal Conservancy and LA Conservation Corps.
“Malibu is committed to protecting our delicate and environmentally important ecosystems that are part of the beautiful coastline that our community cherishes,” said Mayor Mikke Pierson. “I am proud to see this joint effort with our environmental partners get started and look forward to seeing it progress.”
The restoration will help prevent some of Malibu’s few coastal sand dunes from their current degrading state, with the removal of non-native invasive plants and replacing them with native dune plants. The process will create a natural barrier to benefit the dunes from erosion.
Some of the non-native plants that will be removed are ice plants, European sea rocket, Bermuda grass, myoporum and carnation spurge. Instead the following plants will be replaced with native sand verbena, beach evening primrose, beach saltbush and beach bur, which naturally collect sand and build up dunes.
After the planting is complete educational and recreational signage will be displayed for the public. Once the completion of both sites their will be long-term monitoring, maintenance, and adaptive management to determine the overall projects success.
Source: canyon-news.com
