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| Blue Gum High Forest home |
An endangered ecological community is an assemblage of native species that is likely to become extinct if threats continue (NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995). On 5 September 1997, the Blue Gum High Forest listed by the NSW Scientific Committee was gazetted as an endangered ecological community. Less than 5% of Sydney's original Blue Gum High Forest exists today, in the form of a number of remnants. This is a result of fragmentation, developments, increased nutrient status, inappropriate fire regimes, invasion by exotic plants, mowing and clearing. Blue Gum High Forest has now been listed as critically endangered under NSW and Commonwealth environment legislation. Field investigation by the Blue Gum High Forest Group has found that remnants such as Cumberland Forest were cleared of much of their timber and farmed which has resulted in loss of the shrub and ground vegetation and soil seed bank. Most council owned reserves containing Blue Gum High Forest are long and narrow with no core habitat and many have substantial areas devoted to recreation leaving only a small proportion as natural area. We conclude that less than 1% of the original Blue Gum High Forest remains with canopy trees, understory and soil seed bank.
Development at 100-102 Rosedale Road risked destruction of the Blue Gum High Forest ecological community. Wildlife, especially small birds, would no longer have been able to move through it and across Rosedale Road to bushland in the High Ridge Creek catchment. Blocking their movements would have caused an overall decline in the entire forest. Today wildlife is able to move along bushland corridors between this forest and Garigal National Park. Some
birds only nest in hollows in very tall trees, others need dense shrubs
and ground covers in which to hide their nests. Unless the understory
plants are there to provide food and nesting sites for small birds they
will not be able to carry out their insect-control services to the
forest. Thornbills, wrens, treecreepers, pardalotes, scrub-wrens,
gerygones and robins feed on different kinds and sizes of insects and
other invertebrate animals. By controlling insect populations they keep
the forest healthy, preventing excessive chewing and sap-sucking of
leaves, buds, seeds etc. Nomadic
nectar-feeding species visit the forest when the Blue Gums, Blackbutts,
Ironbarks, Turpentines and Angophora are in flower. The honeyeaters and
the grey-headed flying-foxes feed on the nectar, and in return spread
pollen from tree to tree, a process which enables the trees to produce
viable seeds. 96 species of native birds have been recorded in the forest, as well as swamp
wallaby, 10 species of microbats and 1 flying-fox, 2 species of possums, 1 species of
glider and 3 species of lizards. Click here for a list of fauna observed and recorded in the forest. If lost, the integrity of the Blue Gum High Forest ecological community would be gone forever. Blue Gum High Forest is a highly significant habitat for nectar-feeding animals Each of the two dominant canopy trees, Eucalyptus saligna and E. pilularis, secrete sufficient volumes of nectar to make them attractive to migratory birds and bats. The nectar productivity of the vegetation community ranks in the upper 2.5% of communities in the Sydney Basin. It is productive during key periods in the reproductive cycle of Grey-headed Flying-foxes, which is listed as vulnerable under the threatened species legislation of New South Wales and Australia. Blue Gum High Forest also contains fruit-bearing plants in its understory, which are attractive to several species of birds.
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