MORE LAND FOR NSW NATIONAL PARKS AND RESERVES

16/06/2005 - The Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, and NSW Environment Minister Bob Debus today announced that 60,000 hectares of land would be added to the NSW reserve system.
Senator Campbell said the Australian Government has contributed more than $18 million since 1996 to conservation through the Natural Heritage Trust National Reserve Program in NSW.
"The program aims to make sure all the state's different types of landscapes and ecosystems are protected," Senator Campbell said.
"This is a welcome partnership between two government’s that will benefit future generations of visitors to the national parks and reserve system and the environment."
Of the new reserves announced today the Australian Government had contributed $5 million and the NSW Government $3.4 million.
The new and expanded reserves across NSW, include:
• Major additions to Gundabooka National Park, Narran Lakes Nature Reserve and Ledknapper Nature Reserve in Western NSW;
• A new national park in the Riverina, to be known as Kalyarr National Park;
• New and expanded reserves in the Young-Cowra area, including Koorawatha, Dananbilla, Illunie and Gungewalla Nature Reserves;
• Additions to the Mulgoa Nature Reserve in Western Sydney;
• Additions to the icon reserves on the Far North Coast, Cudgen Nature Reserve;
• New reserves north of Moree near the NSW-Qld border known as the Budelah Nature Reserve; and
• Additions to various Northern NSW reserves, including Towarri and Watchimbark Nature Reserves.
"Nature based tourism is flourishing with more than 20 million visitors to national parks each year,"
Mr Debus said.
"They are home to a range of activities from camping and walking to bird watching and cross country skiing.
"We have protected a range of important cultural and historic areas including significant Aboriginal places in Arakwal near Byron Bay and the Paroo Darling in the far west.
"We have also protected 40 per cent, or 620 kilometres, of the NSW coastline in a national park or reserve.
"These new additions build on our plan to make the NSW reserve system the best in the world."
A fact sheet about the new and expanded reserves across NSW is attached.
Fact Sheet - New and Expanded Reserves across NSW
Gundabooka State Conservation Area
New reserve – 25,200 hectares (Yanda)
• Located about 40km south west of Bourke, Gundabooka State Conservation Area (SCA) is adjacent to Gundabooka National Park.
• Gundabooka provides a vital connection between the Darling River and Mount Gundabooka. It includes Yanda Creek, which historically formed part of an extensive travel network for the local Ngemba people, that linked the mountain with other waterholes, creeks and the Darling River.
Narran Lake Nature Reserve
Addition – 6155 hectares
• Narran Lake Nature Reserve is located 50 km north east of Brewarrina. The addition adjoins the western edge of the Nature Reserve.
• The area boasts a diversity of vegetation types from riverine forest to floodplain openwoodlands on cracking grey clay plains, lignum thickets, grasslands and mixed woodland on red sand plains.
Ledknapper Nature Reserve
Addition – 14,187 hectares
• This addition is located about 100km north of Bourke.
• The Ledknapper Spinifex community is a unique and diverse vegetation community, which supports at least 100 bird, 29 reptile, 20 mammal and seven frog species.
• The property is likely to support a number of threatened species including the pink cockatoo, pied honeyeater, brown treecreeper, hooded robin, yellow-bellied sheathtail bat, greater long-eared bat, little pied bat and sandy inland mouse.
Kalyarr National Park
New Reserve – 8135 hectares
• Situated 30km west of Hay, Kalyarr National Park protects environments typical of the western part of the Riverina Bioregion, which are poorly represented in the conservation reserve system.
• These include spectacular chenopod shrublands (bladder saltbush, black bluebush, ruby saltbush and old man saltbush), grasslands, black box woodland, open white cypress pine woodland, and a small wetland depression containing canegrass.
Expanded reserves in the Young-Cowra area, including Koorawatha, Dananbilla, Illunie and Gungewalla Nature Reserves
• Dananbilla / Illunie Protected Area Network
• llunie Nature Reserve additions (2 areas) – 720 hectares
• Dananbilla Nature Reserve addition – 85 hectares
• Gungewalla Nature Reserve – 142 hectares
• Koorawatha Nature Reserve addition – 47 hectares
• Located north east of Young, in the NSW sheep-wheat belt, these four reserves form the core of a protected area network that also includes state forests, private lands under voluntary conservation agreement, and wildlife refuges linked across the landscape by wildlife corridors established by Landcare and other community groups.
• Only 18% of the native vegetation in this region remains in existence, and of this only 5% is protected in reserves.
Mulgoa Nature Reserve
Addition - 75 hectares
• Mulgoa Nature Reserve is located in western Sydney, south west of Penrith.
• This addition to the reserve contains remnants of two endangered ecological communities - shale hills woodland and alluvial woodland. Prior to European settlement these woodlands covered much of the Cumberland Plain, and extended for over 80km from Windsor to Appin.
Cudgen Nature Reserve
Addition – 51 hectares
• Located 13.5 kilometres south of Tweed Heads on the north coast, this addition to Cudgen Nature Reserve features coastal rainforest and heathland to the beach and dunes. The 51 hectares comprises coastal foothills and flats, which are entirely covered by native vegetation.
• The endangered little tern is one of 10 species of migratory birds found here, protected under bilateral agreements with China and Japan.
• This land is also identified as prime koala habitat and is one of the key habitat areas for koala on the Tweed coast.
Budelah Nature Reserve
New Reserve – 4045 hectares
• Situated in a productive agricultural region north-east of Mungindi.
Budelah Nature Reserve provides a viable habitat for threatened species such as the redtailed black-cockatoo, brown treecreeper, hooded robin, grey-crowned babbler and stripefaced dunnart.
Towarri National Park
Addition – 448 hectares
• Two properties totalling 448 hectares form the latest addition to Towarri National Park located on the Liverpool Range, north of Scone.
• They protect woodland and open forest communities growing on rich basalt soils. Snow gum and mountain gum grow at higher altitudes while white box and yellow box woodlands grow at lower elevations. Warm temperate rainforest and the threatened glossy black cockatoo are also found in the park.
Watchimbark Nature Reserve
New – approx. 650 hectares
• The Watchimbark Nature Reserve lies about 40 km north west of Gloucester. Watchimbark Creek is located on outcropping serpentinite along the Peel Fault in the upper Manning Valley.
• Watchimbark Creek and adjoining forest areas are a stronghold for the threatened brushtailed rock wallaby. Other threatened fauna occurring in the reserve include the spotted-tail quoll, parma wallaby, long-nosed potoroo and glossy black cockatoo.