Wagonga Inlet Living Foreshore Wins Three AILA NSW Awards for Climate-Positive Innovation

We’re proud to share that the Wagonga Inlet Living Foreshore was recognised with three honours at the 2025 AILA NSW Awards last night — an achievement that celebrates innovation, collaboration, and care for Country.

- Award of Excellence for Land Management

- Inaugural Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Award

- Climate Positive Design Award

Led by Eurobodalla Shire Council on the South Coast of NSW, this project reimagines the Narooma foreshore as a living, adaptive, and ecologically rich shoreline. Through a coordinated and cross-disciplinary approach, it brings together shoreline restoration, saltmarsh rehabilitation, oyster reef restoration and bank stabilisation — creating a resilient estuarine landscape in readiness for a changing climate.

The project demonstrates how collaboration and investment in nature-based infrastructure can deliver tangible environmental and social benefit — safeguarding Wagonga inlet’s ecological health while enhancing access, habitat, and long-term community value.

The awards citation notes “The Wagonga Inlet Living Foreshore sets a new benchmark in coastal resilience, combining ecological restoration, community stewardship and technical innovation. Reimagining a degraded estuarine edge as a regenerative landscape, the project pioneers Australia’s first adjacent intertidal and subtidal reefs and NSW’s first native angasi oyster reef. Through collaborative leadership, it delivers tangible ecological outcomes — improved water quality, revived habitat networks and strengthened shoreline protection — while honouring cultural values and empowering local participation. This living shoreline exemplifies how landscape architecture can lead transformative climate responses, shifting from hard infrastructure to nature-based design. Deeply embedded in Country, the project reconciles coastal pressures with environmental performance and social connection — demonstrating the profound role of landscape in shaping a resilient future.”

We extend our sincere thanks to Eurobodalla Shire Council, NSW DPI Fisheries and collaborators Royal Haskoning, Short Pants Consulting, Tom Rivard, Nicole Larkin, The Nature Conservancy, and The Oyster Reef Project whose vision and commitment shaped this important work. We also thank the AILA NSW jury for recognising the project across three categories.