Protection of diversity protects threatened species

“ We must consider ourselves lucky, geographically and biologically.  This comes with responsibilities for us, as custodians of the extraordinary!”

Matt Bell chief ecologist from Great Lakes Council was the guest speaker at a workshop on what’s in our Backyard Saturday, 24 October 2015. Twenty NAC residents were treated to a lively passionate and highly educational presentation and walk with Matt on the biodiversity in the Great Lakes area and how we can contribute to reducing impact and preserving what we have in the Cove. The workshop was supported by the GLC Land for Wildlife committee where North Arm Cove is represented by Maria Pickles and Doug Kohlhoff.

Thank you to Matt for providing a copy of his presentation, this is a brief excerpt and further information will be prepared for the future editions of the Cove News and the NAC website.

The Great Lakes is a region of very high biological diversity.  It is a special place.  We are located in a landscape that receives influences from tropical and temperate areas and includes coastal, estuarine, marine, riverine and slopes/ ranges landscapes supporting a great variety of species and communities.

We know there are at least 1,315 individual species of native plants in the Great Lakes region (as perspective, we have about 5.4% of Australia’s total native plant diversity in an area that comprises 0.04% of Australia’s land mass)

Mammals: 67 species, which is 25% of the total of Australia’s total number of living native species

Frogs: 38 species

Reptiles: 59 species

Birds: 303 species

The Great Lakes is also a highly productive landscape with regards to primary production (fish, oyster, grazing and timber production) and an area which provides a desired and attractive lifestyle for residents and visitors. A relatively low population density and significant natural assets underpin this.  The area is a outdoor-recreational playground.

There have been serious impacts to biodiversity but it is fair to say that with respect to nature and biodiversity we are much, much luckier and in a much better place than many other regions.

We have 22% of the Council area in parks or reserves (in comparison about 9% of NSW is protected in reserves) and we have a Marine Park.  Rates of natural vegetation retention are very high compared to many regions.  No wonder we are a natural paradise.

So, we must consider ourselves lucky, geographically and biologically.  This comes with responsibilities for us, as custodians of the extraordinary!

It is not all good news though.  Patterns of clearing have disproportionately affected certain ecosystems, which have been have been heavily lost, fragmented or modified, much biodiversity remains in decline and are not adequately conserved, there is no systematic conservation  framework, there are impending climate change impacts, there are development and land use pressures, we don’t have an adopted Biodiversity Strategy and we have inadequate data/ information/ on which to base many active decisions.

One management challenge relates to threatened species, which are species that, unless the processes affecting them are reversed, are likely to become extinct in nature in the short or medium term.

Some threatened species around North Arm Cove are; the native black eyed susan, Tetratheca juncea, the red bootle brush Callistemon linearifolius, Glossy Black-cockatoo, Brush-tailed Phascogale, Koala, Grey-headed Flying-fox, Masked Owl, Osprey, Bush Stone-curlew, Swift Parrot, micro-bats, Coastal Saltmarsh, Swamp Oak Floodplain Forest, Swamp Sclerophyll Forest on Coastal Floodplain, Rainforest

Protecting threatened species relies on protection of habitat and the management of threatening processes.  This in turn benefits other biodiversity and achieves other outcomes – such as water quality protection, green-space