Across 25 years, over 110,000 mangroves have been planted along the Shoalhaven River.
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These mangroves carry an enormous benefit to the river's banks and ecosystem.
"The most obvious way they help improve the river is that they hold the bank," said Margie Jirgins, environmental scientist and chairperson of Shoalhaven Riverwatch.
"Over the last 100 years, the river has just gotten wider and shallower. But mangroves break the wave action and stop the erosion of our riverbanks.
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"Stopping the erosion means that the farms on the edges of the riverbank don't lose their viable, productive land.
"Mangroves also improve the water quality. If the riverbank erosion isn't stopped, all the sediment goes into the water and reduces the water quality.
"And that impacts everything that lives in the river, as well as the oyster farmers downstream."
Today, Shoalhaven Riverwatch celebrates the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem - a day set by UNESCO.
Before Shoalhaven Riverwatch took charge of planting mangroves along the Shoalhaven River's banks, it was slowly eroding.
"What initiated Riverwatch planting the mangroves is that a lot of the farmers and early settlers didn't realise the cattle grazing over the riverbanks destroyed the mangroves," said Riverwatch's Peter Jirgins.
"That's why all the erosion started happening and Shoalhaven Riverwatch got involved 25 year ago to save it by planting mangroves along the riverbanks."
Easy to look after, Peter and Margie said the mangroves are watered by the tide and that after 25 year's of planting, the river is now almost self-sufficient in regenerating mangroves.
'The beauty of it is that the tide comes in twice a day so we don't have to worry about watering them. We had a 100 per cent success rate with growing them last year," said Peter.
"Now the Shoalhaven River's getting pretty well full of mangroves. It's got to the point where we don't have to plant too many more."
The instigator of saving the river's banks was Charlie Weir, affectionately known as Old Man River or Mangrove Man. Mr Weir sadly passed away earlier this year, but his legacy and knowledge of mangroves and the Shoalhaven River carries on.
"With Charlie planting these 25 years ago, they are now producing millions of seeds and they're now regenerating by themselves," said Peter.
The Riverwatch crew have also helped restore foreshores by planting mangroves at Numbaa, the Nowra Golf Club, Minnamurra and Bamarang.
Now, the group are spreading their knowledge and donating plants to land care groups across the state, while carrying Mr Weir's legacy - one mangrove at a time.
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Grace Crivellaro
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
