Threatened Species Last Stand on the Coal Point Peninsula

World Environment Day was memorable for the CPPA with a phone call from ‘the Trust’ providing the fantastic news that the Threatened Species Last Stand on the Coal Point Peninsula (TSLS) project was successful.

This six year, large scale, bush regeneration project has a $250,000 budget to support bush regeneration within our community.

The following excerpts from the application provide the background to the project which has been assisted by the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust.

The Coal Point peninsula ridgeland and Carey Bay floodplain hold the remnants of a botanically bygone era. The ornamental gardens of early settlers from the 1800s have become environmental transformers. This project will regenerate a 20.2ha mosaic of public-private bushland along the Coal Point ridge and 8.7ha of wetlands & catchment at Carey Bay.

A successful 17 year history of local landcaring has inspired the Coal Point Progress landcarers to undertake a whole peninsula project to protect and preserve 3 endangered ecological communities, 2 endangered populations and 5 vulnerable species. Social media will support community monitoring, participation and information sharing.

This project will enable the bushland corridor which spans the community to be treated as one entity, enhancing the ecological connectivity and resilience within and between areas of differing ownership and enabling the regeneration of critical habitat for the threatened species and communities to be addressed holistically.

The Coal Point peninsula contains three endangered ecological communities, Swamp Oak Floodplain Forest, Swamp sclerophyll forest on coastal floodplain and Coastal Saltmarsh. Endangered populations of the Magenta Lilly Pilly & Powerful Owl exist. Vulnerable animal species that occur are Squirrel Glider, Osprey, White bellied seaeagle. The vulnerable plants are Tetratheca juncea and Macrozamia flexuosa.

The Outcomes that the project intends to achieve are

• Whole of community awareness about the existence of and habitat requirements of local threatened species and ecological communities and ongoing community contributions to monitoring their status.
• Whole of community awareness about managing major transformer weeds Bitou bush, Lantana, Asparagus fern, Madeira vine, Camphor laurel,Morning glory, Olive and Privet and their replacement with local natives.
• Native vegetation gains the ascendency along the Coal Point peninsula and birds disperse local provenance seed and not exotic weeds.
• Wildlife corridors are recognisied and supported across private and public land to encourage the Squirrel Glider colony's movement, and other rare and endagered fauna and flora along the peninsula.
• An active and socially connected community of local landcarers support each other on public and private land to restore and enhance the local environment.
• Public reserves are enjoyed for non-destructive recreation & pedestrian movement along Coal Point peninsula.

The CPPA has been busy setting up the governance structures to implement the project.  The Progress Association has established a TSLS subcommittee, there is Steering Committee comprised of an LMCC rep,John Hughson, a Lake Macquarie Landcare rep Ken McPherson, a Sustainable Neighbourhood rep, Tricia Hunt and 3 CPPA members, Robyn & John Gill & Jean Austen. The project is being coordinated by a Project Management team from Trees In Newcastle (TIN) and on-ground support will also come from TIN and continue to be provided by the Lake Macquarie Landcare Resource Centre.

Part of the application also required declarations of conflict of interest, real, potential or perceived. These were declared as follows “The President of the Coal Point Progress Association for the past 18 years has been Suzanne Pritchard. Suzanne took on the office with the explicit intent of protecting the bushland of the Coal Point -Carey Bay area. Suzanne initiated Landcare within the Coal Point community. Suzanne has recently become employed by Trees In Newcastle and would be part of the TIN project management team if contracted to undertake the project.”

Sincere thanks to the locals who supported the application and to the New South Wales Government through its Environmental Trust for providing the funding to undertake this amazing community project.