Cooks River/Castlereagh Ironbark ecological community

The Cooks River/Castlereagh Ironbark Forest (CRCIF) in the Sydney Basin Ecological Community contains open forest and low woodland. It was gazetted as a critically Endangered Ecological Community on 10 May 2002. There are just 1011 hectares left.[1]

Beverly Grove Bushland

Beverly Grove Bushland is 1.87ha of remnant bushland between Canterbury Golf Course and the M5 East Motorway.[2]

The Canopy includes Eucalyptus resinifera, Syncarpia glomulifera, Eucalyptus eugenioides, Acacia parramattensis, Melaleuca nodosa, Melaleuca decora and Casuarina glauca. The smaller trees include Acacia longifolia, Bursaria spinosa, Solanum aviculare and Polyscias sambucifolia. The ground covers include Entolasia marginata, Cymbopogon refractus, Dichondra repens, Commelina cyanea. Vines include Eustrephus latifolius, Gycine tabacina and Cayratia clematidea.[3]

Beverly Grove Remnant Bushland is one of the larger patches of the CRCIF and has been preserved as an offset for the construction of the M5 East. Despite this, 1.4ha of the site has been proposed as a construction compound for Stage 2: King Georges Road Interchange and New M5 of WestConnex.[4]

Following approval of a secret Biobanking[5] package to offset the destruction of the 1.4ha of Beverly Grove Bushland it was expected to be bulldozed on Wednesday 31 August 2016.[6] Bulldozers moved in on Threatened Species Day (7 September 2016) and started demolishing the bushland.[7] However, despite reports of protestors halting work, demolition continued.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Cooks River/Castlereagh Ironbark Forest in the Sydney Basin Bioregion
  2. ↑ pg 8, Roads and Maritime Beverly Grove Vegetation Plan of Management http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/documents/projects/sydney-south/m5-east/m5-east-beverly-grove-vegetation-plan-of-management.pdf
  3. ↑ p30, Roads and Maritime Beverly Grove Vegetation Plan of Management http://www.rms.nsw.gov.au/documents/projects/sydney-south/m5-east/m5-east-beverly-grove-vegetation-plan-of-management.pdf
  4. ↑ Little, Deb (27 January 2016). "Submission in response to Westconnex New M5 Environmental Impact Statement (AECOM 2015): Project application no. SSI I4_6788" (PDF) (Letter). Letter to Department of Planning and Environment. Wolli Creek Preservation Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 March 2016.
  5. ↑ BioBanking: a market-based scheme The Biodiversity Banking and Offsets Scheme, 'BioBanking', is designed to address the loss of biodiversity values from habitat degradation.
  6. ↑ WestConnex Brings Destruction to Critically Endangered Bushland at Cooks River Posted on 29/08/2016
  7. ↑ Protesters halt WestConnex clearing of rare Wolli Creek bushland, SMH, September 7, 2016 - 9:27AM http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/protesters-halt-westconnex-clearing-of-rare-wolli-creek-bushland-20160906-graeyi.html
  8. ↑ Anne Picot [@apicot] (7 September 2016). "#StopWestconnex @_fisherco being hauled away from bulldozers clearing endangered iron bark forest Beverly Grove" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

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