Tips on how to explore with care

Our natural areas are precious places where locals and visitors slow down, connect with nature, and spend time with friends and family. A few simple actions can help keep our waterways and wildlife beautiful and healthy for everyone.

Be kind, leave no litter behind

Everything you bring to the river leaves with you — including food scraps, packaging, and nappies. Even “natural” waste like orange peels or bread can make animals sick or even be fatal.

✨ Tip: Bring a bag or a container to store your rubbish and food scraps. Air-tight containers (like ice-cream containers) are ideal. And don't feed our wildlife – even if they ask.

Did you know? The critically endangered Bellinger River Snapping Turtle — found nowhere else in the world — depends on these clean, healthy waters to survive. When rubbish finds its way into the river, it spoils the natural beauty and damages the delicate ecosystem this special turtle and so many other species call home.

Lavenders Bridge Park, Bellingen

Leash up and leave only paw prints

Protect the baby birds: Keep your dog out of dunes and away from shorebird nesting sites. Dogs running free can scare parent birds away from their eggs, leaving chicks vulnerable.

Give wildlife space: Stay on tracks and keep your dog on a leash. Even a playful chase can stress or injure koalas, wallabies, and other native animals.

Watch your pooch when it poops: One 10 cent-sized piece of dog waste contains 23 million faecal coliform bacteria – rain washes it into rivers and harms wildlife. Bag it, bin it, keep our waterways clean.

✨ Tip: Keep your dog leashed, take doggie bags with you and always pick up after your loveable hound - even if it’s “out of the way.”

Did you know? Dogs are the third biggest human-induced threat to koalas, after habitat loss and cars. Even the friendliest pet can cause harm to wildlife when off-leash.

Hungry Headland

Stay on the track, keep nature intact

Riverbanks are extremely fragile. One of our sweetest stream dwellers, the vulnerable Glandular Frog, lives in just a small part of Australia — including right here along our riverbanks. These tiny frogs need shady, vegetation-lined streams and quiet, undisturbed banks to survive. Listen closely at dusk and you might just hear their gentle calls.

✨ Tip: Use designated parking areas and leave the river’s edges undisturbed — that’s how we can keep our native animals and plant life thriving.

Go before you go

There are no toilets at our river reserves, so it’s important to use facilities in nearby towns before you visit. Human waste in and around waterways can spread illness and harm aquatic life.

✨ Tip: If nature calls at the wrong time, be prepared — and please, take it all with you.

When there's no toilet:

Bagged poop must be disposed of properly:

Human waste and toilet roll flushed down a toilet

Bags disposed into the red bin

If you're using a compositable bag, your human waste, toilet roll and compostable bag can go into a composting or long-drop toilet only (found in many national parks - just check it's the right type)

Lavenders Bridge Park, Bellingen

Protect your skin, protect the river — choose gentle sunscreen and repellent.

Sunscreen and insect repellent help you enjoy the outdoors safely, but when chemicals wash into the river they can interfere with growth and reproduction of fish and our unique wildlife, small actions that affect an entire river community.

✨ Tip: Before swimming, choose non-nano zinc-based sunscreen and DEET-free insect repellent. They protect your skin and the river.

Dangar Falls, Dorrigo

Share the shore — give shorebirds space to thrive

Our beaches are home to some of the rarest birds in Australia, including the critically endangered Beach Stone-Curlew (NSW) and the Endangered Pied Oystercatcher (NSW) who are nesting right here on our coastline.

Shorebirds lay their eggs in the sand and pebbled areas, making them almost invisible and easily disturbed. If nests are trampled, or parents are scared and abandon their nests, chicks don’t survive. With some species in the North Coast down to just a handful of breeding pairs, we can’t afford to lose them.

✨ Tip: Stay below the high-tide line and, most importantly, keep dogs leashed and away from the sand dunes.

Spotted a rare shorebird? share your sighting and help protect these special species through our citizen science project

Critically endangered (NSW) Beach-stone Curlew in Urunga. Photo by: Brad Nesbitt.

Endangered (NSW) Australian Pied Oystercatcher. Photo by: Brad Nesbitt.

Endangered (NSW) Australian Pied Oystercatcher. Photo by: Brad Nesbitt.