Ian Hitchings’ family has farmed the land around the mouth of the Powlett River for almost a century, but given the chance he would see the 240 hectares returned to the swamp it once was.

Driving through the low-lying farmland of the Kugerungmome Estuary west of Wonthaggi in his dusty Toyota HiLux, Hitchings pointed out the yearly problem with one of his family’s properties.

“There's about 130 acres on that block that gets inundated with water and is basically useless for six months of the year,” Hitchings said.

“It would have been better off to be left for the environment, because it's not very profitable farming land. I have a saying: ‘If you can't drive a tractor on the farm, it's not worth having’.”

What’s happening: The water of the Powlett River/Kugerungmome Estuary spans roughly 50,800 hectares as it runs from the Strzelecki Ranges around Korumburra through to its exit point on Williamson’s Beach where it flows into the Bass Strait.

Clearing of the estuary for agricultural use began in the late 19th century, when settlers started chopping down bushland and draining marshy areas of water by carving out streams.

But despite this work, the low-lying farmland around Wonthaggi remains flooded with water for much of the year.

“It's only six months of the year you get anything out of those 130 hectares,” Hitchings said. “However, it's still rated rural, we've still got to pay rates to keep it, but it's very unproductive land.”

Hitchings family story

In 1928, Hitchings’ grandparents moved to Australia and bought the farmland he still operates today. 

Over the decades his family have primarily farmed dairy cattle, and almost a hundred years later they’re still going, with his youngest son Ben taking up some of their 240 hectares.

“My father really wasn't a very good farmer,” Hitchings said. “He said to me one day, 'If we don't get any more milk out of these cattle, we can give this job away’. So, I thought, ‘Oh, he doesn't know what he's doing, I better get my act together’.”

Hitchings went to Leongatha to study agriculture in his 20s and has been running the family's land around Kugerungmome Estuary ever since, but it has come with consistent challenges.

“The only way to get the storm water from Wonthaggi out to the ocean is via the Powlett River, and when that blocks up naturally from high tides in autumn, the floodplain overflows with water.”

Why does it flood? The mouth of the Powlett River on Williamson’s Beach opens and closes naturally, although the process is sometimes assisted by the West Gippsland Catchment Management Authority (WGCMA).

“When the entrance is closed, water backs up behind that. Eventually, it will get to a threshold where the water can get over the top and the barrier naturally breaks, and everything behind it drains,” Hitchings said.

This process is an important part of maintaining a healthy habitat for many species of fish, birds and invertebrates that seek food and shelter in the estuary, according to WGCMA.

Over the years, Hitchings has done a lot of work with the authority planting trees and trying to turn some of his farmland back to what it was before settlers arrived.

He said if WGCMA offered to buy his land to return it to nature, he would gladly take that deal.

Professor David Kennedy, a coastal geomorphologist at the University of Melbourne, told the Monitor governments buying back farmland to return to swamp and marsh have become more common in Europe and North America.

“When the farmland is below low tide and floods naturally, there’s an option to let it flood deliberately and then re-establish salt marsh and mangroves, which are great at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and have a lot of positive environmental benefits.”