Restoring the woodlands

Pioneer farmers cleared forests, woodlands and grasslands from Queensland to Victoria to develop the eastern wheatbelt farmlands that have contributed so much to the prosperity of Australia. More than 90 per cent of the forest cover was removed and what remains is highly fragmented; many species, plants, animals and birds, are endangered. Now a reverse effort is underway to restore vegetation types so as to maintain the local flora and fauna for future generations.

The extent of land-clearing can be seen from the Cowra lookout in the city’s centre. This small tree’d hill is in fact a good place to see many bird species, including Eastern Rosellas, Rainbow Bee-eaters, White-plumed Honeyeaters, Rufous Songlarks, woodswallows and raptors.

In the Cowra district the forest cover has been largely removed. Only small pockets of the original grassy woodlands and dry sclerophyll forests remain – on inhospitable steep and rocky hills, on TSRs (Travelling Stock Reserves), and by the road-side. Small patches of riverine forest are seen on river banks. The Cowra Woodland Birds Program encourages re-vegetation and protection of existing woodlands and conducts quarterly surveys to monitor bird numbers.

The Golden Valley Travelling Stock Reserve is one of 6,500 across New South Wales. The TSRs are common land owned by the government to aid movement of livestock across the state. They are too often the only local remnants of original bush and their old trees often provide nesting places for parrots including the vulnerable Superb Parrot.

This dry patch of callitris (cypress pines), ironbarks and other eucalypts is typical of residual hill top bush of the Cowra region. It remains home to many rare and vulnerable species of plants and birds.

Developers to clear last unburnt bush at Manyana

After years of drought and then the bushfires; it is a real-estate company based on Canterbury Road in Sydney that intends to deliver a final blow to Manyana’s wildlife.

Manyana on New South Wales’ south coast is surrounded on two sides by bush burnt out by the fires that destroyed over 80 per cent of the Shoalhaven’s forests. In a miracle of tenacity firefighters saved the Village and also a 20 hectare plot of forest on its north-west corner.  This plot consists of 13 hectares of Northern Coastal Sands Shrub/Fern Forest, five hectares of Bangalay Moist Woodland/Open Forest, and one hectare of Bangalay Paperbark Woodland. It is now the largest block of unburnt bush for many kilometers.

The New Year 2020 fire burnt all the way to Cunjurong Point Road but firefighters saved the bush block on the right and the Manyana Village. This is the block that developers are now preparing to clear for housing. The bush on the left was burnt by the Currowan Fire that destroyed over 490,000 hectares of bushland.

This block was zoned residential back in 1972 and then in 2008 a subdivision for 182 blocks and homes was approved by the Labor state government. Development is about to start after all these years. Two weeks ago the developer announced the recent temporary reprieve they had applied because of the fires was now over and that they would commence clearing, despite opposition from locals. The state government says its hands are tied because the project is already approved; the Shoalhaven Council says it is out of their hands. Protestors are taking the issue all the way to the Federal Government.

Protestors have defaced this sign on the fence enclosing rare Bangalay Paperbark Woodland that will be saved under the subdivision plan to form an isolated and inadequate reserve.

This bush now provides badly needed food for wildlife isolated by the fires. In 20 minutes standing on the road across from this block I observed one Eastern Spinebill, six Yellow-faced Honeyeaters, a Pied Currawong, and heard several Spotted Pardalotes, Little Wattlebirds,and an Australian King Parrot. An old nest was visible, most probably belonging a Pied Currawong.

This Yellow-faced Honey-eater feeds on Turpentine (Syncarpia glomulifera) on the Manyana bush block under imminent threat of clearance for a new housing subdivision.