A celebration of community passion and determination was held on Sunday afternoon with the unveiling of a new statue by local artist Richard Moffat.

A successful online crowd-funding campaign to replace the stolen bird - dubbed “Return the eagle spirit to Panboola” - raised over $6800 from the local community.

President of Panboola Wetlands and Heritage Project Mandy Stevenson thanked everybody in the community who helped the organisation through donating either their time or money to the project.

“Panboola has huge multiple benefits for the people of Pambula,” she said.

“There are quite a few endangered ecological communities that we are in the process of restoring, and I think we've really achieved a lot in the last couple of years.”

Ms Stevenson also thanked Panboola's vice-president John Dawson for “negotiating every step of the process". 

Mr Dawson was overjoyed at the response of the small community to replacing the statue, after the theft of the eagle in 2011 shocked and saddened many.

“It' a real joy to be here,” Mr Dawson said.

“Panboola is such a marvelous asset to the community that's perhaps not utilised as much as it could be.

“You've got the river, the bird lands and the old racecourse all right here.”

With thousands of visitors each year to the wetlands, the heritage project has relied on thousands of hours of hard work by volunteers.

“We've started planting 2000 plants along the highway as a corridor for the bird life and we have one also all the way to the river,” Mr Dawson said.

Bega Valley Mayor Michael Britten said the 82ha parcel of land was a special place for both conservation and recreation.

“The statue is a new entrance to the hectares of re-vegetated wetlands and natural billabongs,” he said.

“It's a very peaceful place to come and be with nature.”

Panboola is an important breeding ground and nursery area for animals such as birds, fish and invertebrates.