TO: Director, Conservation Incentives and Design Section
Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
Canberra, ACT
wildlife.corridors@environment.gov.au
Submission re : Draft National Wildlife Corridors Plan
Northern Rivers Guardians, Inc (NRG) is a community-based political lobbying organisation
dedicated to preserving and enhancing the environment and lifestyles for this region. Most of our
approx. 500 members live in or around the Tweed district of NSW. We commend the Draft National
Wildlife Corridors Plan and encourage the legislation and implementation of the Plan.
Most of the population in this Northern Rivers region of NSW values highly our natural environment.
Any opportunity to protect and enhance that resource must be treated as urgent in view of the parlous
state of the rest of the world, including many areas of Australia, where the natural environment is
stressed and many species have already become extinct. We believe that the Tweed area is superbly
positioned to provide a wildlife conservation sanctuary.
The Tweed caldera and surrounding reserves
This area is replete with National Parks and conservation zones of various types. With minimal
endeavour this patchwork (See map below) could be joined to provide Australia with a
magnificent sustainable wildlife conservation area.
The Caldera includes 3 World Heritage listed National Parks.
The Caldera is listed as an Iconic National Landscape, the 2nd largest erosion caldera in the world.
National Landscapes web site says : Australia’s Green Cauldron is home to more than 230 different
species of birds such as the powerful owl, marbled frogmouth and the eastern bristlebird. Over 200
threatened plants and animals can be found across the landscape, and more than 100 species are
endemic — found nowhere else on earth. The region is also home to the highest diversity of mammal
species in Australia. The rainforests of Australia’s Green Cauldron protect the most extensive area of
subtropical rainforest in the world and are part of the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests of
Australia.
NRG recommends that the whole of the Caldera area be evaluated, and prioritised under the National
Corridor Plan. The DECCW has already mapped out significant wildlife corridors within the Tweed
Shire that should be included within the Plan.
Map: Courtesy Shane Ruming: DECCW, Coffs Harbour
Even a summary glance at the map above reveals that much could be gained for future wildlife
preservation through a system of legally protected corridors. That some species need to travel
from the mountains to the coastal habitats for food or procreation is less evident but easily
imagined from the map.
Due to the rapid urban expansion in this shire much of this landscape is now under threat of habitat
destruction, with natural corridors and conservation areas now threatened with a resulting loss of
species. A Wildlife Corridors Act could ensure a long term commitment to the protection of such areas
and help restore ecological connectivity through the development of National Wildlife Corridors. The
Northern Rivers Guardians applauds the National Wildlife Corridors concept and will work towards
implementation.
We are assured by our Aboriginal constituents that Mt Warning/Wollumbin is a significant Aboriginal
Cultural Heritage Site, as are the ridges and surrounding areas radiating out from it, and the ancestral
song lines or dreaming paths.
Tweed Shire Council is currently preparing a report on the possibility of the area being nominated as the
“Border Ranges Biosphere”, which could encompass and support the National Wildlife Corridors
Plan.
Mt Warning/Wollumbin National Park Corridor
Mt.Warning/Wollumbin National Park World Heritage area is essentially an island National Park in the
centre of the Caldera, with World Heritage listed Border Ranges National Park on the Southern &
Western rim of the Caldera & World Heritage listed Lamington National park on the Northern & North
2
Western rim.
An authority declaring National Corridors that buffer and link our National Parks is greatly needed to
help preserve our landscape and species, against inappropriate development and further segmentation of
wildlife refuges areas.
The map below shows a strategic area which could be acquired to join conservation zones
in the headwaters of the Byrrill Creek catchment.
3
Byrrill Creek/ Mebbin Corridor
Specifically, our group recommends that the major corridor linkage of the Byrrill Creek area between
the Mt Warning/Wollumbin National Park, Mebbin National Park and ultimately to the World Heritagelisted Border Ranges National Park be recognised as extremely important .
Ecologist Dr. Stephen Phillips, of Biolink Ecological Consultants says:
What is now Mebbin National Park is the last and only major linkage area allowing flora/fauna of the
World Heritage listed Mt Warning central massif to connect across the caldera floor to the former
shield volcano’s outer rim. The headwaters of Byrrill Creek begin within Mebbin National Park, the
creek and its riparian habitat provides a further link across the valley floor directly to the Tweed River.
At least three Endangered Ecological Communities occur along the Riparian corridor of Byrrill Creek.
Dr S. Phillips identified 45 Threatened Fauna species, 26 Flora Species & 3 Endangered Ecological
Communities in a 5km radius of Byrrill Creek. 24 species of Flora & Fauna are listed under the Federal
EPBC Act.
The Byrrill Creek area has been classified as an important conservation area or corridor area within the:
 Border Ranges Rainforest Biodiversity Management Plan
 The Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority (NRCMA), as a Priority
Implementation Area
 NSW Stressed Rivers Assessment – Tweed Catchment, NSW Land and Water Conservation
 Tweed Riparian Restoration Prioritisation Report (2003) Ecosure, Burleigh Heads
 Tweed Shire Vegetation Management Strategy (2004)
 NRCMA Byrrill Creek Riparian Rehabilitation Project 2006
 PAS Key Corridor Connections Project 2009 & 2010
Priority Implementation Area - Byrrill Creek
Some NRG members are deeply involved in conservation of the Byrrill Creek
area and I have included a map of actions proposed to restore connectivity
between conservation zones. (permission by J. Gardiner,Byrrill Creek Landcare Group.)
Funding of approximately $560,000 has been spent on the Byrrill Creek Subcatchment on riparian
repair, weed management, & rehabilitation. This has been funded through the NRCMA, Environmental
Trust, Tweed Shire Council & Land Care funding. The Byrrill Creek Landcare Group is committed to
ongoing maintenance & revegetating of riparian corridors.
This area is currently under threat as a proposed dam site for water supply for the urban developments
being planned for the north & east of the shire.
$3.6 million has already been spent on Preapproval Plans by Tweed Shire Council. Approx 60% of the
land under threat of inundation is owned by Council & was planted out as a hardwood plantation in the
1980s. As such this land has also become part of a wildlife corridor linking Mebbin/ Byrrill Creek to
the Mt. Warning/Wollumbin areas.
4
Map Defining Proposed Byrrill Creek Dam 36,000ML & adjacent National
Parks
5
NRG believes the yellow strip of land owned by Tweed Council between Wollumbin
Conservation area and Mebbin National Park should become part of Mebbin National Park and
be given full protection under the NPWS Act. It is forested and is part of the Mt
Warning/Wollumbin/ Mebbin wildlife corridor.
Currently the Tweed Shire Council considers the land to be "operational " which means that it could be
logged, sold or inundated without reference to the real owners: the people of the Shire who "own" the
Council. It must be protected as public land into a conservation zone which will vouchsafe the future for
the area's unique and vulnerable wildlife.
We also believe the Wollumbin State Conservation Area should be incorporated into Wollumbin
National Park. At present there is the potential for mining licences to be granted in this critical corridor,
which is well forested, a known core Koala habitat and which creates a refuge for animals migrating
between the National Parks. Any attempt to mine in this area would be met with fierce resistance by
residents leading to unwanted social division and political crises.
Corridor to link Burringbar Range/Mooball National Park & Cudgen Nature Reserve
6
Another corridor area that deserves nomination and protection within Tweed Shire is one that
links the Burringbar Range with Mooball National Park and the Cudgen Nature Reserve, near
Pottsville.
(See DECCW map, Page 1. )
Within this corridor Kings Forest, a proposed urban development of 12,000 residents, has been
approved by the previous NSW state government. The development is located within core
koala habitat and koala migration corridors. There is an estimated 144 coastal Koalas left in
Tweed Shire and there is a dwindling chance of their survival.
........................................................................................................................
For reasons of protection, maintenance, restoration, resilience, and health of our biosphere,
NRG supports the National Corridors Plan. The Plan will need legislation within a Federal Act
to really protect vulnerable areas with strong administrative provisions to be able to implement
restrictions on inappropriate development. We urge the adoption of this Plan as a matter of
greatest importance: Loss of biodiversity is likely to impact on all aspects of life in Australia.
Please acknowledge that you have received this submission. Submission cover sheet sent
seperately
Yours sincerely,
Scott Sledge (President)
on behalf of the Northern Rivers Guardians, Inc.
7