Now You See it ... Last Specks of Shrinking Sydney Forest
2/3/00
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Title: Now you see it ... last specks of shrinking Sydney forest
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: February 3, 2000
Byline: James Woodford
More than 90 per cent of the main forest type that once covered
Sydney has been destroyed by development, says a new report to be
released today by the State Government.
Once, Cumberland Plain woodland covered 122,634 hectares of the
Sydney Basin. Today, only about 10,000 hectares are left.
The results are detailed in a study called The Native Vegetation Maps
of the Cumberland Plain Western Sydney. It is the first time the
vegetation of the entire Sydney Basin has been mapped in detail and
includes remnant trees on private landholdings.
The survey has been prepared by the National Parks and Wildlife
Service. Fifteen maps showing local government areas were produced
for the project at a scale of 1:25,000 and one overall map was also
produced at 1:100,000. The maps locate native bushland, the condition
of individual patches and their conservation significance.
"Descriptions can be used by councils, developers and their
consultants to apply consistent scientific criteria to identify or
verify plant communities that may be impacted upon," says the report
accompanying the maps.
A forest community is a group of trees, shrubs and ground dwelling
plants that live together to make up a specific ecosystem.
The situation is even worse for other Sydney vegetation types. The
bluegum high forest plant community, which consists of spectacular
huge trees and dozens of other species, has been reduced to an area
of less than 1 per cent of its former total.
Once it covered nearly 4,000 hectares of the fertile areas around
Pennant Hills.
Turpentine ironbark forest has fared worst, with just 29 hectares
left of the 13,000 hectares here when Europeans first arrived.
Castlereagh scribbly gum woodland has fared best, with 56 per cent
intact.
As part of the project, a CD has been prepared containing all the
data collated during the study. The director-general of the National
Parks and Wildlife Service, Mr Brian Gilligan, said the information
and maps will be incorporated into recovery plans for endangered
plant communities.
"It will assist land managers and decision-makers in their
assessments of the significance of development proposals and their
ongoing management of vegetation remnants," he writes in the foreword
of the report.
A spokeswoman for Penrith City Council, Ms Amanda Kane, said the
report highlights the significance of one of the largest patches of
Cumberland Plain woodland, the former ADI site at St Marys, a patch
of forest earmarked for housing.
"In 200 years of aggressive development we have destroyed 91 per cent
of the Cumberland Plain woodland. It's a valuable natural resource
and we should do everything in our power to save it," she said.