A biodiversity leg up for Snowy Monaro bush country
A biodiversity leg up for Snowy Monaro bush country
By the end of Spring 2021, Upper Snowy Landcare and an ever expanding list of financial backers, on-ground partners and local volunteers will have invested a huge amount of environmental, financial and social capital into the dieback region of the Monaro.
Collaborations -
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The issue
The Snowy Monaro is a harsh but special landscape. Upper Snowy Landcare, together with our many partners, is planting biodiversity patches across the Monaro to restore degraded areas, improve habitat values and enhance landscape values. All our plantings are effectively infill inside a woodland shadow (past cleared or dieback-affected woodlands) and we never plant into the precious native grasslands that do not carry trees due to basalt geology. Approximately 14% of the Monaro used to be covered by native grasslands but this is much smaller today - the map on the right shows the yellow pre-European grasslands area. All the rest is trees, trees, trees - see the other map.
The solution
One of our highlights was planting out 4500 native trees and shrubs in a restoration plot funded by CHEP (CHEP pallets) on the historic Coolringdon Property. This was with the help of CHEP staff from Sydney who braved the rain and cold to come down and help.
A further 2000 plants went into three new sites around the Snowy Monaro and another 500 bulked up some of our previous plantings.
In Spring we are planting 2000 into an African Lovegrass affected patch down near Dalgety.
In five short years, we will have put in 31 biodiversity patches to help improve and reconnect biodiversity across the Monaro.
The impact
Although these plots just really scratch the ecological surface, we are hoping that the plantings will assist the survival of a range of threatened species in the Monaro. Below is a list of NSW species that rely on healthy woodlands and are now declared vulnerable.
Birds: Eastern False Pipistrelle - Gang-gang Cockatoo - Glossy Black-Cockatoo - Brown Treecreeper (eastern subspecies) - Turquoise Parrot - Barking Owl - Powerful Owl - Masked Owl - White-bellied sea eagle - Swift Parrot Endangered
Marsupials: Eastern Pygmy-possum - Spotted-tailed Quoll - Yellow-bellied Glider - Squirrel Glider -
Bats: Eastern Bentwing-bat - Southern Myotis - Eastern False Pipistrelle
Key facts
- Woodland species require healthy trees and habitat.
- Much has been lost to historic clearing and dieback events.
- Many vulnerable species across the Snowy Monaro need intact woodlands - unfortunately, all of them are now considered vulnerable.