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The Upper House of the NSW parliament has been conducting an inquiry into how the planning system can be improved so that people, threatened species and the built environment are protected from the impact of climate change. Sue Higginson from The Greens is chairing the inquiry. The terms of reference were broad and provided an opportunity for individuals, local councils and community groups to comment using local examples of the long list of inadequacies of the system and the resulting environmental destruction. They make interesting reading!

Our submission on the planning system

The development application for Westleigh Park was open for submissions until 20 November. STEP’s criticisms of this large project have not been addressed so our submission drew largely from previous ones. Most of the more detailed ecological reports have many inadequacies so we consider that the development application should not be submitted to the Planning Panel until the missing details are covered. The basic problems that we have written about many times remain, namely the mountain bike trails, the use of synthetic turf and the serious and irreversible impacts on Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest.

Our submission on Westleigh Park

Australia’s national parks, botanic gardens, wild places and green spaces are swarming with an invasive pest that is largely flying under the radar. This is yet another form of livestock, escaped from captivity and left to roam free.

Contrary to popular opinion, in Australia, feral colonies of the invasive European honeybee (Apis mellifera) are not 'wild', threatened with extinction or 'good' for the Australian environment. The truth is feral honeybees compete with native animals for food and habitat, disrupt native pollination systems and pose a serious biosecurity threat to our honey and pollination industries.

As ecologists working across Australia, we are acutely aware of the damage being done by invasive species. There is rarely a simple, single solution. But we need to move feral bees out of the 'too hard' basket.

The arrival and spread of the parasitic VarroaVarroa mite in New South Wales threatens to decimate honeybee colonies. So now is the time to rethink our relationship with the beloved European honeybee and target the ferals.

Closeup photograph of a honeybee collecting pollen from a purple flower
Feral honeybee foraging on native Boronia ledifolia in the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains National Park. Amy-Marie Gilpin

What makes a hive feral?

European honeybees turn feral when a managed hive produces a 'swarm'. This is a mass of bees that leaves the hive seeking a new nest. The swarm ultimately settles, either in a natural hollow or artificial structure such as a nesting box.

With up to 150 hives per square kilometre, Australia has among the highest feral honey bee densities in the world. In NSW, feral honeybees are listed as a 'key threatening process', but they lack such recognition elsewhere.

A nesting box installed for native animals filled with feral honeybees (Apis mellifera). Cormac Farrell

Feral honeybees have successfully invaded most land-based ecosystems across Australia, including woodlands, rainforests, mangrove-salt marsh, alpine and arid ecosystems.

They can efficiently harvest large volumes of nectar and pollen from native plants that would otherwise provide food for native animals, including birds, mammals and flower-visiting insects such as native bees. Their foraging activities alter seed production and reduce the genetic diversity of native plants while also pollinating weeds.

Unfortunately, feral honeybees are now the most common visitors to many native flowering plants.

Are feral bees useful in agriculture?

Feral honeybees can pollinate crops. But they compete with managed hives for nectar and pollen. They can also be an reservoir of honeybee pests and diseases such as the Varroa mite, which ultimately threaten crop production. That’s because many farms rely on honeybees from commercial hives to pollinate their crops.

So reducing feral honeybee density would benefit both honey production and the crop pollination industry, which is worth A$14 billion annually.

Improved management of feral honeybees would not only help to limit the biosecurity threat, but increase the availability of pollen and nectar for managed hives. It would also increase demand for managed honeybee pollination services for pollinator dependent crops.

What are our current options?

Tackling this issue will not be straightforward, due to the sheer extent of feral colony infestation and limited tools at the disposal of land managers.

If the current parasitic Varroa mite infestation in NSW spins out of control, it may reduce the number of feral hives, with benefits for the environment. Fewer feral hives would be good for the honey industry too.

Targeted strategies to remove feral colonies on a small scale do exist and are being applied in the Varroa mite emergency response. This includes the deployment of poison (fipronil) bait stations in areas exposed to the mite.

While this method seems to be effective, the extreme toxicity of fipronil to honeybees limits its use to areas that do not contain managed hives. In addition, the possible effects on non-target, native animals that feed on the bait, or poisoned hive remains, is still unstudied and requires careful investigation.

Where feral hives can be accessed, they can be physically removed. But in many ecosystems feral colonies are high up in trees, in difficult to access terrain. That, and their overwhelming numbers, makes removal impractical.

Another problem with hive removal is rapid recolonisation by uncontrolled swarming from managed hives and feral hives at the edges of the extermination area.

Taken together, there are currently no realistic options for the targeted large-scale removal of feral colonies across Australia’s vast natural ecosystems.

Drone (male) honeybee. James Dorey

Where to now?

For too long, feral honeybees have had free reign over Australia’s natural environment. Given the substantial and known threats they pose to natural systems and industry, the time has come to develop effective and practical control measures.

Not only do we need to improve current strategies, we desperately need to develop new ones.

One promising example is the use of traps to catch bee swarms, and such work is underway in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges. However, this might be prohibitively expensive at larger scales.

Existing strategies for other animals may be a good starting place. For example, the practice of using pheromones to capture cane toad tadpoles might be applied to drones (male bees) and swarms. Once strategies are developed we can model a combination of approaches to uncover the best one for each case.

Developing sustainable control measures should be a priority right now and should result in a win-win for industry, biosecurity and native ecosystems.

If there is something to learn from the latest Varroa incursion, it is that we cannot ignore the risks feral honeybees pose any longer. We don’t know how to control them in Australia yet, but it is for lack of trying.

We would like to acknowledge the substantial contribution made by environmental scientist and beekeeper Cormac Farrell to the development of this article.The Conversation

Amy-Marie Gilpin, Research Fellow, Ecology, Western Sydney University; James B. Dorey, Adjunct Lecturer, Flinders University; Katja Hogendoorn, Research fellow, University of Adelaide, and Kit Prendergast, Native bee ecologist, Curtin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A group of residents in West Pymble took Ku-ring-gai Council to the Land and Environment Court for a judicial review of the decision to proceed with the construction of a stormwater mitigation system and synthetic turf soccer field at Norman Griffiths Oval. A group called Natural Grass at Norman Griffiths (NGANG Ltd) was registered in order to conduct the case and receive community donations.

This follows council’s decision to proceed with the project in early March 2023 after the release of the Review of Environmental Factors (REF), version 8, two weeks earlier. The haste in starting work was a cause of much frustration in the community and a fiery public forum meeting. After all we had had to wait over 14 months to see the details of the design and the REF. The time available to review the REF was inadequate; much shorter than promised. The councillors dismissed the relevance of the environmental issues raised by the community on the grounds that the REF provided assurance that the issues were not significant.

An injunction was accepted by the court to stop construction past the stormwater mitigation system stage until the case was decided. The case was expedited so there would not be a long delay before contractors started laying the turf.

Over $120,000 was raised towards the costs of the case and expert witnesses. This is a demonstration of the high level of public interest and concern about the use of synthetic turf.

GrossPollution

The gross pollution trap and diversion to underground detention ... but what about the water flow from the hill above the field?

Last minute amendment to the REF

NGANG was right! The time allowed to review the REF was too short. The REF was missing some of the analysis required about environmental impacts following an amendment to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (EP&A Act). Council decided it was okay to make a last minute amendments so version 9 was published on
4 July. Sadly, the L&E Court did not see that this expediency was an issue that could prevent the project proceeding but it is another demonstration of council’s poor governance.

Court case begins on 2 August

The main arguments submitted by NGANG were that:

  1. Not all required environmental issues were considered to the fullest possible extent

The case was a judicial review where the relevant task is the consideration of the decision made by council. The judgement explained that a challenge may be made on the basis that the decision-maker should, acting reasonably, have made some additional inquiries. Expert evidence as to what the outcome of those inquiries would have been is, in some cases, admissible. Expert evidence was provided by Dr Scott Wilson, a microplastics expert and Dr Martens, a stormwater expert. Council also engaged three experts on flooding, pollution and ecology.

NGANG argued that council had not examined and taken into account to the fullest extent reasonably possible all matters likely to affect the environment following the installation of the synthetic turf. This is a duty imposed under section 5.5 of the EP&A Act.

NGANG’s case was that there should have been inquiries covering:

  • a pollutant load study to assess microplastic pollution;
  • a flood study to understand the flood impacts on the area and whether the stormwater detention proposed would function in the manner intended; and
  • an investigation and understanding of where the overland stormwater flow path would be located in circumstances of an extreme rainfall (1 in 100 year event); and the investigation of the impact of the overland flow path upon the Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest below the field.

There was disagreement between NGANG’s expert and council as to the adequacy pf the onsite stormwater detention system (OSD). As an observer of the case, it appeared that much of the discussion of the OSD was at cross-purposes in referring to the existing system versus the new system. A new system had to be installed because the hard surface of the synthetic turf could not retain the stormwater. The old grass surface acted as the OSD.

The court ruled that the judicial review could not consider the merits of council’s decision and could only review whether it was acting reasonably. The judge rejected the evidence of Dr Martens and Dr Wilson that was sought to be tendered to establish the duty to make further inquiries in the circumstances of this case.

Stormwater system

Dr Martens advised on the requirement to undertake a study to understand the flood impacts on the area and whether the stormwater detention proposed would function in the manner intended. The report in the REF by Optimal Stormwater Ltd determined that the proposed system was capable of operating in the manner and to the specifications for which it was designed. The judge ruled that, in the circumstances, there was nothing on its face that would cause a decision-maker to consider that the opinions expressed were not reliable or not properly formed. The suggestion that the council was not entitled to take ‘at face value’ the information in the Optimal Report has no foundation. The question remains as to whether the specifications are adequate.

Microplastics

The ruling in relation to this issue indicates that the wrong question was being asked. On the evidence contained in the REF there is a goal of minimising microplastic loss from the synthetic field and identifies the measures to be adopted to achieve such goal. It is acknowledged that 100% capture is not possible, especially in extreme rainfall events but no further inquiries were recommended.

  1. There is an obligation to commission an environmental impact statement

The other main ground argued by NGANG was the failure to comply with section 5.7(1) of the EP&A Act. This provision contains within it two obligations, first to determine whether the activity has a significant effect on the environment and secondly, if so, to not carry out the activity or grant an approval until it has obtained and considered an environmental impact statement (EIS):

In submissions NGANG formulated this ground on three bases:

  • If the court found on the evidence that there was a prospect that the flood mitigation scheme being an integral part of the activity did not work as asserted by the manufacturer, either in not acting as an OSD system or not sufficiently capturing the overland flows, the court would find, on the evidence, that the proposal was likely to significantly affect the environment.
  • If the court found on the evidence that the OSD system would not work as designed the infill and microplastics will not be sufficiently captured or retained on-site and will be washed down into the receiving environment, including Quarry Creek.
  • A separate impact which has not been assessed from the overland flow path, which is the water diverting to the south over the field and then discharging into Quarry Creek, and the potential impacts on the adjoining STIF and Quarry Creek from that overland flow.

The judgement stated that consideration of significant impact on the environment is so broad and far reaching that it was unlikely to be determined as an objective fact by the court in judicial review proceedings. Therefore the question of whether an activity is likely to significantly affect the environment is not an objective jurisdictional fact but is a matter for the determining authority (the council) to determine acting reasonably. It seems that the precautionary principle doesn’t have any weight in this case whereby uncertainty does not justify inaction.

In this case the Judge found that council had acted reasonably. Statements by Dr Martens that the impacts may occur were insufficient to permit a finding of a likely significant effect on the environment. Modelling of changes in the hydraulic performance had not been done to enable the Court to make its own assessment.

Full steam ahead but what will happen when the plastic grass needs to be replaced?

So sadly, the construction of the synthetic turf field is now proceeding at maximum pace with completion possible by the end of this year.

The synthetic surface will not last forever, the lifetime with normal levels of use is 8 to 10 years. The question is, will council be able to replace the surface with synthetic turf? Now that a stormwater mitigation system is in place the flood risk from the field that acted as a stormwater detention basin has been substantially ameliorated. So it would be an excellent base for a natural grass field.

Currently there is no effective system for recycling the materials in synthetic turf so the large volume of material ends up in landfill. The evidence of environmental harm from the use of synthetic turf overseas is growing as is community opposition to its use because of the heat and injury risks. Several states in the USA have banned future installations of artificial turf because it contains dangerous chemicals such as PFAS compounds.

The Chief Scientist’s review into the design, use and impacts of synthetic turf in public open spaces highlighted the need for more research into human health and environmental impacts. Microplastics are a becoming more and more pervasive in our waterways. They can also interact with soil fauna, affecting their health and soil functions. Synthetic turf breaks down with people running over it and general deterioration from sunlight exposure. This breakdown increases as the turf blades age. The Norman Griffiths REF acknowledges that it is not possible to capture all the microplastics that will break off the turf. They will be washed off the field by rain but also blown away by wind due their small size of less than 5 mm.

We understand that council will be testing Quarry Creek for microplastics but the soil within the STIF forest and bushland below the field should also be tested.

The outcome of the chemical analysis must be taken into account when the replacement of the field surface is considered. Also we hope that the guidelines developed from the Chief Scientist’s review will provide meaningful decision making processes.

Ultimately the question that has to be asked is about the appropriateness of adding a large area of plastic to the environment when there is a viable natural alternative; that is real grass!

There has been such strong community opposition to synthetic turf at Norman Griffiths and in other parts of Sydney it will be difficult for councils to ignore in making future decisions.

 

Sunday, 03 September 2023 00:53

Ku-ring-gai High School hockey field

The synthetic hockey surface was installed about 30 years ago and is now worn out. The Northern Sydney and Beaches Hockey Association (NSBHA) has been working on a project to renew the surface and upgrade the players’ amenities. They originally proposed a totally new facility at Barra Brui oval in St Ives on the edge of Garigal National Park. That was eventually knocked back because car parking space was too limited. So the project is proceeding at Ku-ring-gai High.

The project is being funded through a NSW Office of Sport – Sporting infrastructure Grants ($2,720,000), NSBHA funding ($480,000) and a Ku-ring-gai Council contribution for specific carpark works ($1,000,000), giving a total of $4,200,000.

The council meeting in August voted to proceed with the joint project at Ku-ring-gai High. We cannot provide more details as all the reports presented to the meeting were confidential. The meeting minutes note that council is accepting the risks and costs associated with the project and the general manager is to be the delegated authority to execute the draft Heads of Agreement on behalf of council. What are the ‘risks and costs’? The grants are intended to cover the construction and installation costs.

Car parking is an unknown element of the project. A new parking area on the school grounds requires approval under Part IV of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, for which council would be responsible. It is hard to see how the car parking can be increased without affecting the broad area of bushland in the school grounds that abuts Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and contains some rare plants.

The meeting minutes note that the development of the field will occur irrespective of whether development consent is obtained for the car park upgrade. In the staff report for the meeting it is stated that the project is justified because the project will lead to better containment of impacts on-site and hence reduced impact on the local community. We can’t see how impact will be reduced with more traffic on Bobbin Head Road. If the car park upgrade does not occur there will be more demand for parking on Bobbin Head Road.

Sunday, 03 September 2023 00:57

North Turramurra Recreation Area grandstand

There has been much angst expressed at Ku-ring-gai Council forums and meetings about the grandstand project. Sure there is a need to improve the facilities at the ground but the proposal is over the top. The cost of the proposed 300 seat grandstand plus café, change rooms, offices, treatment rooms, corporate and media facilities has gone beyond the estimate obtained in August 2022 of $5.5 million. A recent quote obtained by Council was $7.76 million. The proponent, the Northern Suburbs Football Association (NSFA) thinks the $7.7 million figure is overly conservative, but $5.5 million is still enormous!

At the council meeting on 28 July a detailed debate occurred over whether council should proceed with a Heads of Agreement and accept the risks, costs and benefits. The motion put before the meeting noted that the project may not be financially feasible but is driven by ‘economic, social and environmental value offered to the community’. This is an odd statement as the community has objected vociferously about the social impacts in particular (increased traffic, noise, bushfire risk).

The NFSA is bearing the construction and operating costs. They were advised that two grants were approved, one a Female Friendly Community Sports Grant for $500,000 and the other from Multi-Sport Community Facility Fund for $3.6 million. So the NSFA is fronting up at least $1.4 million.

There are still several concerns with this ambitious project:

  • The cost looks likely to be higher than covered by funding.
  • As pointed out by Cedric Spencer in a motion presented to the August council meeting, it is not clear that the grant applications had council’s consent. This is a prerequisite to grant approval.
  • Council will seek assurance that a grant that benefits football, is not inconsistent with the key objectives of the Multi-Sport Community Facility Fund.
  • The long-term master planning for NTRA when it was developed in 2011 never contemplated a facility of the scale and nature proposed by NSFA. It was a multi-year project funded from development contributions, general revenue and a special rate variation levied on all residents of Ku-ring-gai. The project cost some $30 million. It was not carried out for the benefit of one dominant sporting group which is what it would become with the implementation of the grandstand proposal. The NSFA would be the primary users of this site at the expense of all other users.
  • There is conflicting information about the longer term plans for the site in reference to the amount of usage and the traffic that would be generated. It seems a very expensive project if, as declared by the NSFA, the usage of the three fields is not going to increase.
  • There are rumours that there are intentions to convert one or more of the other two playing fields to synthetic turf, which would be strongly opposed.

Typical low maintenance plantings on public land have low diversity, visual appeal and function. Monocultures of strappy plants such as Lomandra longifolia and Dianella or single shrub species like saltbush are often the plants of choice that provide little contribution to biodiversity.

Since 2015 Melbourne University, in collaboration with the University of Sheffield, has been trialling a novel low-cost and resilient approach to urban greening, using natural shrubland structures as templates to create beautiful, diverse plantings of Australian shrubs which are maintained through coppicing.

The idea is that coppicing (hard pruning to 10 to 20 cm high) every two to four years will promote flowering and rapid canopy closure to exclude weeds and reduce maintenance. With their high number of flowers, woody meadows encourage insects such as native bees, small birds and other wildlife.

Woody meadows are highly adaptable and can be used in a wide range of urban settings including railway easements and roadside verges, roundabouts, parks and gardens, and as part of water sensitive urban designs like raingardens and retention basins. Their low water use and maintenance requirements, coupled with high visual appeal and adaptability make them an attractive, cost-effective solution for councils and urban land managers challenged by climate change and often limited green space funding.

Councils, government agencies and developers are embracing this idea, with more than 6,000 m2 of woody meadows established around Australia that include approximately 40,000 plants from 150 different species.

With more 25,000 m2 of plantings planned for 2023, you’ll likely be seeing woody meadows popping up in your neighbourhood soon.

In August council’s environmental staff and 14 local volunteers planted 400 tube stock in Transmission Park in St Ives Chase to create the trial woody meadow. The plantings will develop over the next 12 to 18 months and staff will monitor the site to test whether biodiversity is increasing through more sightings of insects, birds and animals.

The evidence from this initial planting will help decide whether to extend woody meadows to other public land in Ku-ring-gai.

At the August council meeting it was decided to trial the introduction of a new recycling service of items that are currently not included in council’s recycling contract. After a two year trial period its cost effectiveness will be assessed. Items covered by the service include:

  • soft plastics
  • clothing and linen
  • small household appliances such as electrical tools, hairdryers, irons, toasters, laptops and game consoles
  • coffee capsules, batteries, medicine containers, printer cartridges and sealed paint tins

Residents are able to book a collection from their home direct to the recycling depot. Residents can use their own bags to separate recyclable items from their general waste. Bags can also be provided by RecycleSmart. Make your booking via the RecyleSmart app.

Collection of larger items can be booked as an add-on to an existing pickup.

Prepare to appreciate the world under your feet (well, your feet grounded on the earth, maybe not on a concrete slab).

There is a network of mycelia that belong to their own kingdom: Fungus. Lacking chlorophyll, they grow from the tips of microscopic hyphae and digest nutrients externally (underground) before absorbing them into the mycelium.

One hypha is a microscopic filament but together they form a fungus mycelium (the network). Hyphae can not only branch but also fuse, or ‘anastomose’ and exchange genetic material. The cell walls are made of chitin, a hardness also found in arthropod exoskeletons. The mycelial scaffold essentially mirrors exponentially the life forms above ground. Mycelial networks bind soil particles while also aerating the soil, creating spaces in the soil. This architecture allows water to penetrate soil’s deepest horizons.

The fungi also form alliances with plants, or even digest other organisms. Fungi and algae, forming lichens, create soil on rock – as on exposed rock left by the retreating Vatnajökull ice cap in Iceland.

Many plants depend on mycorrhizal fungi – the fungi forming beneficial relations with roots: hyphae extend the roots’ absorbable surface; the tree provides sugars from photosynthesis while the mycorrhizal fungi make nitrogen and phosphorus available to the tree.

The author gives us good reason not to clear-fell, nor burn our forests in super-hot conflagrations, nor overheat the earth with global warming, nor over-fertilise and apply weedicides to our monocrops; even the high-velocity gale of the leaf-blower dislodges spores, let alone grasshoppers, beetles and frogs. It kills the fungi.

Some ‘old growth’ trees reach hundreds of years of age; but the fungi beneath them are at least as long-lived. Old forests support a greater diversity of fungi than young, or obliterated, forests.

Interesting allusions – Pouliot mentions her US Northwest rented V8 Dodge Charger not being the ideal field vehicle ‘with the clearance of an echidna’.

The ninth chapter Women as Keepers of Fungal Lure fills a gap. I searched for books on fungi and nearly all the citations are of men’s studies.

The tenth chapter Restoring Fungi is apposite given the fungus talks by Emeritus Prof Michael Gillings and Vanessa McPherson of Macquarie University. They observed that sites where works such as a drainage pipe had been laid hosted far fewer fungi than undisturbed (or merely weeded) sites. A property owner demonstrates that we need to create diversity and reduce stresses. On her property she supplied diverse organic matter of different species, size and age, and eliminated tilling, digging, excavating, heavy machinery and even hard hooves of stock.

Mistletoe contributes to restoration, providing nectar for butterflies, gliders and possums; and when it dies its leaves enrich the soil with phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium.

Lichens colonise bare earth and are part of the cryptogamic crusts essential for forming a film that reduces wind and water erosion. This crust of fungi, algae, cyanobacteria and mosses over the soil fixes carbon and nitrogen – and is destroyed by stock. The property owner, Kazuko, observes ‘We should be starting with soil crusts rather than trees when restoring ecosystems’.

Fungi have infiltrated Landcare! Officially restoring waterways, agricultural and natural areas since 1989, the movement now recognises the necessity of healthy fungi.

The author has travelled the globe and gives examples of mycophiles’ world-wide fungus hunting throughout the book. There is a species register with common and scientific names of fungi and lichens, plants and animals; a glossary, selected sources and an index. The editor might have picked up the constant misuse of ‘among’ and ‘between’. Despite the listing of 11 images, there are no photographs. Our desire for pictures and descriptions of so many intriguing species and descriptions probably needs a mini-encyclopaedia!

Alison Pouliot, NewSouth Publishing, 2023; 278pp (reviewed by Margery Street)

Sunday, 03 September 2023 01:23

Feral horses in Kosciuszko

Finally there is the prospect of real action on feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park – please make a submission by 11 September 2023.

Penny Sharpe, NSW Environment Minister has announced a proposal to amend the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Management Plan to permit aerial culling of feral horses. There is an urgent need for action as the number of horses has been increasing rapidly. The government says the most recent official count estimate was that there are between 14,501 and 23,535 feral horses across the park.

Under the management plan agreed to under the previous government, the number of horses had to be reduced to 3,000 by 2027 in order to limit the damage they are doing to the sensitive alpine ecosystems. About 30 endangered native species and their habitats are at risk of extinction due to introduced animals, including wild horses.

However the current management methods used such as on ground shooting, trapping and rehoming are not effective. The numbers are still increasing. More effective action must be taken before the situation gets even more out of control.

The proposal is open for submissions until 11 September. Submissions need only be short. There are various ways to submit, listed on the government's Have your Say page.

Sunday, 03 September 2023 21:25

Book review: The Memory of Trees

This book was of great interest having lived in Perth for 9 years and worked and travelled at length in WA for more than 40 years, including in many areas covered in the book, set predominantly in the south-west and south of the state. It's written by freelance ecologist and writer Vicki Cramer, whose research and publications through institutes like Curtin University and the CSIRO span a wide range of WA ecology, from bats and marsupials to Western Australia’s management, exploitation and clearing of eucalypt forests. In 2021 she was awarded a Dahl Fellowship from the charitable organisation Eucalypt Australia. Though set almost entirely in WA, the book mirrors the natural vegetation situation in other states and the threats it faces.

The Memory of Trees is divided into long, quite detailed chapters dealing with topics such as Jarrah forests and their threats, the West Australian Wheatbelt and salinity, the amazing Great Western Woodlands with their vast areas of trees growing in climates so dry that trees really shouldn’t grow at all. And, of extreme importance for us in NSW, the subject of bushfire, of hazard reduction and cultural burns and their history and arguments for and against. Relevant to fire and overshadowing everything covered in the book of course is climate change, the biggest mover of the goalposts that we face.

How many plant species are native to the south-west of WA? Well, the book cites 8379 would you believe (but of course new species are discovered every year so that’s by no means the final figure). Of that number, 1750 are native to Fitzgerald River National Park for example, a big park of nearly 3,000 km2 flanking WA’s south coast, big yes, but that’s very, very rich! (Blue Mountains World Heritage with around 1500 species is three times as big). And then the Stirling Ranges: full of endemic species, some of them isolated to individual peaks. These are examples of the fragile communities surviving as large islands of natural vegetation flanked or surrounded by land cleared for agriculture? What species have been lost through the clearing process? We will never know the full number, plant or animal. 

Stirling Ranges and Fitzgerald River are flanked by the WA Wheatbelt. Vast areas of forest and woodland were cleared through waves of settlement, and managed on a broadacre basis with no treed remnants allowed to remain that get in the way of the massive harvesters. Farms have merged over time and families have moved away, much as is happening in Europe. The ancient impoverished wheatbelt soils were boosted, and have to be regularly topped up with superphosphate and trace elements. Natural vegetation over most of the wheatbelt is restricted to corridors and fringes along boundaries and roadways, plus isolated small copses. Mass tree removal, their roots no longer pumping, led to gradual rise in salinity – covered by a chapter in the book that highlights the recovery efforts of landowners and community groups but also political sidestepping, ignorance and neglect. Governments like to bypass salinity, highlighting grain yields, but a brief Google search will tell you that the WA wheatbelt yields a ball park figure of around 2 tonnes of grain per hectare – Ukraine by comparison, in its heyday, achieved roughly double that.

The Jarrah forests, featuring Eucalyptus marginata, were a backbone to WA’s historic economy. The rich, deep red, termite resistant timber is hard to source today except through recycling, but it was used in building and construction, in termite proof railway sleepers and in flooring and furniture, and it was exported globally. But it grows on iron and alumina rich laterite terrain large areas of which have been mined for bauxite. Bauxite, a chemically extreme end member of a soil profile, is typically only a few metres thick and so vast areas have to be stripped and mined to yield a commercial tonnage. Companies however are obligated to stockpile and restore the surface material, and the author describes traverses with colleagues in areas ranging from pristine and even rare old growth forest to sites in various stages of restoration. But one comes away with the impression that nothing can truly replace the lost forests. And then of course there’s climate change pushing winter rainfall southwards, and Phytophthora dieback!

Now for the Great Western Woodlands: these are truly vast but exceptionally vulnerable, made up essentially of eucalypt species some of which recover from fire, like the numerous species of mallee, while others are obligate seeders and are incinerated. If you’ve travelled the wheatbelt and the southern goldfields you’ll be familiar with the copper-red trunks of salmon gums. If you’ve driven east of Norseman you’ll have seen fine examples of Great Western Woodland, and perhaps be stunned to learn that the seemingly healthy trees are growing in less than 300mm mean annual rainfall. The author's field descriptions in areas east of the wheatbelt town of Hyden are both illuminating and saddening: overall the vast woodlands are threatened by climate change, reduced rainfall, human activity and most especially by fire.

Later in the book the author veers towards positive aspects: the Gondwana Link and the Nowanup Cultural Community. Gondwana link, which involves Bush Heritage among other groups, acquires land to revegetate to eventually form a chain of natural vegetation from the coastal forests of the south-west 1000km to the east to join up with the Great Western Woodland. Nowanup on the other hand was established to rally behind and promote Noongar cultural elements of which include cultural burning, which is perhaps the only way to mitigate and soften the devastating effects of climate change and fire on the woodlands and forests within a realistic time frame.

Viki Cramer, Thames and Hudson, 2023, paperback, 292 pp (reviewed by John Martyn)

The Chief Scientist’s report, Synthetic Turf Study in Public Open Spaces has finally been released but fails to give definitive guidance.

Main conclusion is wrong – we cannot treat synthetic turf as an experiment!

The report developed a set of recommendations that it states will (p vii):

allow NSW to adopt an accelerated ‘learn and adapt’ approach to the use of synthetic turf under NSW conditions … If applied, they will allow NSW to set the scene over the next decade, using new fields as a testbed to contribute to innovation and data-driven decisions.

This statement is totally at odds with the precautionary principle. New synthetic fields should not be approved if the major issues cannot be addressed.

The Natural Turf Alliance is calling for the NSW government to put a stop to all plans for synthetic turf on playing fields until there is sufficient information to enable more evidence-based decision making processes. It is only right to take a precautionary approach to ensure that there are no regrettable long-term impacts on human health and the environment. Also, many of the highlighted issues could have significant financial consequences.

In the meantime, there is an urgent need to upgrade some playing fields, and natural turf can be used. Councils are already managing hundreds of natural grass fields. There are ways of doing a better job of upgrading and maintaining these fields. The report acknowledges this but then says nothing more.

Background

There has been considerable community concern about the installation of synthetic turf on playing fields, particularly in environmentally sensitive locations, and bad experiences with the planning process. Following a public enquiry in early 2021 that amplified these issues, in November 2021, Rob Stokes (then) Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, asked the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer to provide an independent review into the design, use and impacts of synthetic turf in public open spaces.

It was promised in mid-2022. It took the Greens to issue a standing order in the Legislative Council for it to be finally released on 9 June 2023. The report was dated 13 October 2022. Who was trying to hide the results? Was it the Minister for Planning, Anthony Roberts whose desk it was sitting on? The excuse given was it that was ‘cabinet-in-confidence’ and consultation was taking place with councils and sporting bodies about the guidelines that should be issued for synthetic turf installations. In the meantime lots of decisions are being made without this information.

What the report says about natural turf

The first item of the terms of reference is:

  1. Identify, describe and provide advice on:
    (a) key scientific and technical issues associated with the use of synthetic turf compared with grass surfaces in public spaces

The report states (p v.):

Best practice guidelines for improving the performance of natural turf have been developed in NSW. If applied to installation and ongoing management of natural turf sporting fields, these practices may allow increased performance of natural turf fields to meet demand.

In the more detailed discussion of the recommendations, in reference to an example of the guidelines developed for the Lower Hunter, the report states that analysis in the guidelines reported:

that when lifecycle costs and carrying capacity were considered, natural turf fields built to best practice were more cost effective than alternative options including synthetic turf.

Nowhere in the report is there a comparison of the scientific and technical issues that apply to the use of natural grass and synthetic turf. It is frustrating that there is no discussion about making a choice between the two. They are treated as separate entities.

Natural turf is already proven to be a better option

At the community forum organised by the Natural Turf Alliance on 23 June the speakers demonstrated that natural turf will be successful in terms of available playing hours if the correct soil preparation and drainage system is applied. Councils just have to improve their practices.

Demand for synthetic turf

According to the report, which is at least a year out of date, there are currently about 181 synthetic turf fields in NSW in public and private (eg schools) spaces. This compares with about 30 in 2018. The support for these installations has been driven by the soccer associations that are arguing that available playing hours are too restricted on grass fields to meet demand. This has been the case in the past couple of years that were abnormally wet.

Demand is increasing with population growth and it is argued by the soccer associations that the game is becoming more popular as women are taking up the game.

There are other arguments about several issues such as relative life cycle cost and water use that still being debated.

The concerns about use of synthetic turf

The report describes many issues with the use of synthetic turf and many where more research is required.

Chemical composition

Many synthetic sports fields in NSW feature long synthetic blades supported by infill, the most commonly used infill is styrene butadiene rubber crumb sourced from recycled tyres. The crumb is imported and there is a lack of information about potential contaminants such as heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Currently, there is insufficient information and a lack of standards about the materials and chemical composition of synthetic turf. Other types of infill such as cork, are being used in newer fields but the review does not provide detail about these.

Longevity of synthetic fields

Overall, it is not clear how Australian climatic conditions will affect expectations about the longevity and carrying capacity of synthetic fields compared with overseas experience that is the basis of current decision making about installation and cost-benefit considerations.

Sustainability

Practices and standards for recycling and disposal are changing locally and overseas. Australia banned the export of waste tyres including tyre crumb from January 2022 so this component of synthetic turf has to be recycled locally or sent to landfill. The process of separating turf into components that are reusable is highly complex. Plans for a recycling facility near Albury have not yet been established.

Health

Heat impacts are a priority area for research. The commissioned reports and literature review did not identify major health risks associated with the use of synthetic turf, although it was noted that significant knowledge gaps remain and research should prioritise the potential health impacts of chemicals such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and some heavy metals. The health impacts of the high heat levels of synthetic turf are not discussed in detail but the closure of fields in hot weather is canvassed especially for younger children.

The report notes that per- and poly-fluoroalkyl compounds have been found in low concentrations in the turf blades and base carpet. They create a risk of cumulative harm to aquatic and soil life, the environment and ultimately human health.

Social and wellbeing effects

Important considerations for planners and councils will vary with each site and include reduction in community access, odours from synthetic materials and increased artificial light.

Environment

Many potential impacts are raised that need to be mitigated. Microplastics and infill have entered waterways. Design guidelines are now in force to control leakage but their success still needs to be monitored. Older fields have been observed to lose a lot of rubber crumb especially as they age. The impact of escaping infill and turf fibre (microplastics) on local soil and ecology needs to be researched.

Fragmentation of animal habitat and disruption of ecological functions will occur through the loss of natural grass, increase in heat and additional light at night. The report states that synthetic turf is unsuitable for locations with flood and bushfire risk or in sensitive ecological locations.

Recommendations

Community groups concerned about the increasing use of synthetic turf have highlighted several issues. Many of these are the subject of recommendations in the report.

1.     Planning approval process

In most cases a development approval process is not required from the local council. The assessment required is a Review of Environmental Factors (REF) subject to requirements defined in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulations.

The report looked at a sample of REFs and found many gaps in coverage of these requirements, for example:

  • climate change impacts on surface heat and stormwater
  • impact of impermeable surface on soil health
  • waste disposal at the end of life of the turf
  • micro and nano-plastic contamination
  • impact of increased light and heat on fauna outside the footprint of the field

Several of these issues were not covered adequately by Ku-ring-gai Council’s REF in relation to the Norman Griffiths Oval development.

The approval process does not provide clear requirements for community consultation. The report highlights this gap in the process:

Early community engagement that continues through the planning period enables discussion and representation of all stakeholders.

Consultation was sadly lacking in the case of Norman Griffiths.

2.     Mitigating environmental risk

A plan is needed for the development of appropriate standards for best practice installation and use, consistency with net zero targets and end-of-life solutions via industry engagement with government and researchers.

In addition, fields in proximity to sensitive ecosystems should be independently assessed to assist with management of identified environmental issues. Risk assessments should be undertaken so that synthetic fields are not approved in areas of high environmental risk including bushfire prone areas or those with higher likelihood of flooding.

3.     Future data and research

The report recognises that the scale of public investment in sporting infrastructure requires a more systematic and data-driven approach to decision-making. There is a vast amount of existing information from different sources about the design, management and performance of sporting fields, but these are not readily available or collated. A more accessible and reliable source of verified information is required.

Data collection should be complemented by the research program to address key knowledge gaps in human health and environmental impacts. A key research priority is understanding the characteristics and composition, including the chemical composition, of materials used in synthetic turf and associated layers.

We congratulate former STEP treasurer and councillor on Ku-ring-gai Council, Anita Andrew, on receiving the W.R. Browne Award for 2023. This award is presented to a person for distinguished contributions and demonstrated impact to the Earth sciences in Australia.

Anita has been joint editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, the official journal of the Geological Society of Australia, for 13 years, and has been instrumental in maintaining the high standard of this international publication.

The medal honours the life and work of geologist William Rowan Browne, 1884–1975 who was a field geologist with a love of the high country and its glaciated terrain. He was a major supporter of the need to conserve Kosciuszko for all time, against much opposition.

High net immigration is putting huge pressure on governments to get more housing built. But do we need to do this at the expense of planning rules that are intended to create housing areas where people might actually enjoy living?

The new NSW government has announced that it will scrap local council and planning panel processes for developments worth more than $75m if they include at least 15% affordable housing. Developers will be able to go straight to the Department of Planning via state significant development rules so that decisions will made more quickly.

Further, these developments will also gain access to a 30% floor space ratio boost, and a height bonus of 30% above local environment plans.

Councils have been assured by the Minister for Planning (Paul Scully) that they will be consulted about the strategic merit of these proposals and council local environment plans will not be overridden.

The reforms are set to take effect later this year and are a part of the government’s commitment to construct 314,000 homes over five years.

Huge growth in population over 2022

It is not hard to see why we need so much new housing. Australia’s population grew by almost half a million during 2022 to reach 26,268,000 people at 31 December 2022. The annual growth was 496,800 people (1.9%). Annual natural increase was 109,800 and net overseas migration was 387,000.

There has been a lot of publicity about the proposed development of an area of land known as Lizard Rock. The outcome could be significant development for other areas of bushland in the Northern Beaches Council area. First some background.

The Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983 established Aboriginal land councils to manage land to provide an economic base for Aboriginal communities as compensation for historic dispossession and ongoing disadvantage. The Metropolitan Local Land Council (MLALC) owns several areas of land in the northern beaches area. Any development of this land is subject to an approval process with several stages.

Development delivery plans

In September 2019 the MLALC requested the Aboriginal Land SEPP be amended to include its land holdings in the Northern Beaches Council planning processes. This is facilitated by a Development Delivery Plan (DDP), a strategic plan that sets out the development objectives for priority land owned by local Aboriginal land councils. The DDP will help Aboriginal people develop their land to support their community and protect Aboriginal cultural heritage. It will also provide new homes and jobs for the wider community.

Nine sites (six initial sites and three future sites) were identified in the Aboriginal Land SEPP and a draft DDP. Click here for a map of the sites. These documents were exhibited by the Department of Planning for public comment prior to approval. Many submissions were made on issues including bushland and environmental impact, traffic, infrastructure, open space, bushfire and Aboriginal heritage. However these detailed issues will be considered in respect of each individual planning proposal and subsequent development application.

Lizard Rock planning proposal

Of the six sites, Lizard Rock on Morgan Road, off Forestway in Belrose was earmarked as the most suitable opportunity.

Lizard

Lizard Rock site

Since October 2022 the proposal for development of this 67.7 ha site has been gone through the stages of the planning approval process, namely a planning proposal and then a gateway determination that have been reviewed by a planning panel and approved subject to various conditions.

The proposals have been opposed by politicians on all sides and the Northern Beaches Council on the grounds of the loss of pristine environment, bushfire risk, the significant congestion created and insufficient regional infrastructure. The mayor, now local MP, claims that the northern beaches already has plans to build sufficient housing in better locations

In June 2023 the planning proposal was supported at gateway determination, subject to several gateway conditions. This is for 450 low-density residential lots with 10% allocated for affordable housing. Approximately 19 ha of the site will be preserved and restored as conservation areas or public open space.

Next steps for Lizard Rock

The amended planning proposal will soon be publicly exhibited for a minimum of 30 working days to allow feedback on the proposal. Then the updated planning proposal will submitted to the department for finalisation assessment and the local environment plan and amendment will be drafted and made.

Next steps for the remaining sites

The remaining five sites require further investigation. Future land uses could include residential, industrial, employment and environmental conservation. These sites could have planning proposals or development applications submitted over the next five years.

The local orchid Genoplesium baueri (endangered), also known as Bauer’s Midge Orchid, was added to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species last year at COP 15. It is currently also listed as endangered under the NSW and federal biodiversity conservation legislation.

This classification means that it is at high risk of extinction in the near future. The inclusion in the Red List adds international significance to the classification and opens up international funding opportunities for people working to conserve these orchids.

There are some populations in the St Ives Showground precinct in the vicinity of the Wildflower Garden and nursery. This may restrict development because the plan of management mentions the possibility of road connections and increased parking between the Wildflower Garden and Showground.

Reasons for endangered classification

The NSW Scientific Committee (2012) has identified the following reasons for the endangered classification.

The main reason is the orchid’s highly restricted geographic distribution that is projected to continue to decline. The number of populations of G. baueri is uncertain. Based on records from herbaria and sightings, there are estimated to be between 20 and 30 populations between Port Stephens and Ulladulla and likely to be less than 250 individuals.

Geographic distribution is precarious for the survival of the species based on severe fragmentation of populations; continuing decline inferred and projected due to current threats of disturbance from trail bike riding, rubbish dumping and urban development; and extreme fluctuations in the number of mature individuals.

The species does not produce a new tuber at the end of each growing season but instead persists from the same tuber-like perennial root. Jones (2006) suggests that cultivation is ‘impossible’.

Plants do not regularly appear each year, despite favourable seasonal conditions. When plants do appear, they are only above ground for approximately two months before dying back to a dormant state. Whilst the appearance of plants above ground may fluctuate from year to year, individual plants may remain dormant in the soil. Nevertheless the number of plants of G. baueri is considered to be low.

Reference

Jones DL (2006) A Complete Guide to Native Orchids of Australia including the Island Territories. Reed New Holland: Sydney

Thursday, 06 July 2023 22:29

Ku-ring-gai recreation needs study

Ku-ring-gai Council has recently completed a recreation needs study. The June meeting agreed to put the study out for public exhibition but it is not there yet.

The outcomes are important for putting the demands for the use of our natural areas into perspective.

Population

Ku-ring-gai’s population is growing and becoming more diverse. Current population is 124,000. Around 17,000 more people will live in the LGA by 2041 (Department of Planning population projections, 2022). In 2021, around 25% of residents live in apartments, 28% speak a language other than English at home, and families with children and young people make up 46% of households.

People want more spaces to participate in informal recreation for fun

Fun and enjoyment (90%), fitness and exercise (88%) and getting fresh air (88%) are the main reasons residents use recreation spaces. Walking (87%) is the most popular recreation activity followed by bushwalking (75%). Other popular activities include picnics (64%), relaxing (58%), walking the dog (48%), fitness activities (44%) and running (44%).

Sports are still in high demand, but non- traditional sports are emerging

Local sporting clubs and peak bodies indicated that participation in organised sport remains popular, reporting a 41% increase in participation in the past five years. There is also increasing demand for spaces for informal social team sports, emerging games such as Padel and pickleball, as well as demands for more spaces for women’s sports.

Sporting fields

A review of the facilities against benchmarks indicates that there are adequate sports fields but their quality should be improved. This is a major barrier for participation with the issues being lighting, amenities, maintenance, safety and unfit facilities for female participation.

There is an oversupply of tennis courts and a need for more basketball courts.

Analysis of council’s formal booking data shows that natural turf sports fields operate below capacity throughout the year, indicating the opportunity to improve their capacity and utilisation. However there are questions about whether the booking data is a true indication of actual usage. It can be observed that tennis courts get a lot of informal usage.

Sports fields and sports spaces can no longer be single purpose or single code to meet needs. The availability of suitable additional land is limited and expensive. This means planning for more diverse and equitable open spaces and recreation facilities that are designed for shared uses by children, older people and dog owners.

Council should undertake a study to determine which sporting codes can share effectively and how to optimise existing sports fields and sports courts to make them more multi-purpose.

In our view synthetic turf is not the answer. Upgrading existing grass fields and improving maintenance will meet the needs of existing organised sports. The study highlights the need for more flexible and multi-purpose use of these fields. This cannot occur with synthetic turf that is focussed on facilities for a single sport.

Open space and parks

There is a need for more open space especially near the railway line. Based on the benchmark of 1 ha per 1,000 people Ku-ring-gai is well below the minimum requirement of 124 ha of parks to support the current population in 2021.

Natural areas

It is acknowledged that natural areas are predominantly conserved or preserved for passive recreation. There are limited opportunities to provide recreational spaces in natural areas. There is still a need to better connect them to the public open space network, as well as expand the recreational trails, where possible. The emphasis should be on ‘where possible’. The walking trails could be improved in many ways such as signposting and better linkages but there is little opportunity for new trails and bike tracks without compromising the quality of bushland.

Ku-ring-gai Council is developing a masterplan for the St Ives Showground and Precinct that will guide future improvements and define a longer term vision for the precinct.

This follows the Plan of Management (PoM) that was finalised in October 2021. The PoM sets the overarching principles and direction for the masterplan and must be adhered to as a regulatory document. We have already reported on the fraught consultation process of development of the PoM.

As a first stage council is seeking input from the community about the masterplan with the objective of creating a plan that will:

… ensure it meets the needs of current and future users and the wider community.

Online survey and submission website

Click here to respond to a survey about the current facilities. You can also provide written comments or upload a letter. The closing date is 17 July, 5 pm.

There are several issues that STEP will be commenting on that are not included in the survey. The written submissions will contribute to the contents of the masterplan. It seems that it is difficult to influence council to change a draft plan once it has been published. This will take place in August with the final draft going before council in September 2023.

User groups such as bike riders and soccer players are likely to be commenting so it would good to hear the views of those of you who value the biodiversity of the precinct (as was demonstrated during the STEP walk led by Mark Schuster in February).

What is being surveyed?

The survey asks questions that are narrowly focussed on opinions about the facilities at the showground including suggestions for changes or improvements. There are also questions about the capacity to hold larger events for more than 300 people.

Parking and traffic movements are the most obvious issues. The showground is already highly congested on weekends given the popularity of the playground and regular events such as the markets and horse riding. The PoM states that:

The lack of formal parking and users creating informal parking areas can cause soil erosion and compaction, which impacts negatively on the environment, vegetation, and water quality.

A major part of the parking area near the entrance is actually in amongst vegetation that is classified as Duffys Forest that is endangered and should be protected. It is a dust bowl or muddy mess depending on the weather. It is only going to get worse if more facilities are going to be developed.

The PoM gave a high priority to defining parking controls and preparing a landscape plan to guide the rehabilitation of the Duffys Forest but no plan has been seen yet.

Some sort of public transport system has to be developed as well as a safer way of exiting onto Mona Vale Road especially when major events are held such as the Medieval Faire.

We are also concerned about the health of the trees that are supporting the high ropes course.

The current PoM is not actually a plan for many parts of the Showground precinct. For areas like the nursery and former Greenfields tip it is merely a set of suggestions or ideas. One concern is the plan to upgrade the link between the Wildflower Garden and the Showground. The area contains prime Duffys Forest vegetation as well as the endangered Genoplesium baueri.

We are pleased to announce that the recipient of this years’ award is Margarita Gil-Fernández for her project entitled Mycorrhizal Fungal Diversity Associated with Small Mammals in Response to Anthropogenic Disturbance.

Margarita has provided the following description of her work.

I received my Master of Research degree from Macquarie University where I am currently completing my PhD degree. I am interested in mammal ecology, from small mammals to big carnivores, including invasive species. I have experience in research planning, experimental design and implementation, as well as data collection, management and data analysis. To date, my research projects have primarily been field-based, including projects for small mammal trapping and monitoring, camera trapping, and forest health research.

Anthropogenic (e.g. agriculture and urbanisation) and natural (e.g. wildfires and insect outbreaks) disturbances are currently increasing. One of the main strategies plants employ to cope with these stress conditions is to form mutualistic associations with mycorrhizal fungi, which enable them to better acquire water and soil nutrient resources. The distribution of mycorrhizal fungi is tightly linked to animals, with rodents and several Australian marsupial species being the key dispersers of these fungi.

Therefore, the composition of small mammal communities could influence the make-up of mycorrhizae communities and in turn the composition and resilience of vegetation communities.

We aim to examine the relationship between anthropogenic disturbance and mycorrhizal fungal diversity associated with small mammal communities around Sydney, to help inform management strategies that will enhance forest resilience to disturbance as well as inform the conservation practices of native small mammal species.

The study will take place in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, which is bounded by urban development and hence is exposed to increased anthropogenic disturbances. We will trap small mammals at 10 sites in and around the park and scats of the captured mammals will be collected to assess mycorrhizal fungal diversity. We will then extract the DNA from the scat samples to identify mycorrhizal fungi species being dispersed by these mammals using genetic analyses known as next-generation sequencing barcoding. Our results will provide new insights into the impacts of anthropic environments on small native mammal communities and the mycorrhizal fungi they disperse, with implications for the management of native plant species that depend on these fungi.

Thursday, 06 July 2023 22:38

Research Grant

We have decided to expand our commitment to environmental education, and this year we have awarded our first ad hoc research grant to Vanessa McPherson from Macquarie University for her project Fungal Biodiversity: Diversity, Distribution and DNA.

Vanessa will examine club and coral fungi in the Lane Cove Valley and surrounding regions, using DNA barcoding to identify and characterise novel and existing species.

New specimens will be prepared for Herbaria and characterised microscopically to unify morphological and DNA data. Existing Herbarium specimens will be processed for DNA analysis. This project will definitively identify diverse species of clubs and corals, assemble a reference collection of specimens and photographs, generating DNA databases and morphological keys for identification of Australian species. New species, phylogenies of fungal taxa and distribution maps will be published in the scientific literature.

Thursday, 06 July 2023 22:39

Night visitors

Have you ever wondered about all the little creatures that may visit your garden at night? A wildlife camera has been on our wish list for some time but we finally got round to getting one when former STEP president, John Burke, showed us the photo of a wallaby he’d caught on his camera. His garden backs onto a huge bushland area but behind us we have only a very small bush reserve surrounded completely by homes so we knew any of our visitors would be far smaller.

Our first experiment resulted in the usual suspects: a brush tail possum, a ringtail and a rat. There was also a pair of bright eyes across the fence watching from our neighbour’s tree.

The next location we chose for setting up the camera was a series of snuffle holes close to the gate adjoining the bushland and the first images taken that night revealed a very healthy-looking bandicoot. We were so delighted but what chilled us was an image taken not long after of a large cat sniffing the bandicoot’s trail.

It really brings it home how vulnerable our native animals are. There are districts like the Blue Mountains where owners are required to keep their cats in at night. Although it’s not mandatory in metropolitan Sydney, it’s a matter of management — sticking a pot plant in front of the cat flap, saying no to Tiddles. There are mixed reports as to whether collars with bells are a solution because it has been found that some cats are clever enough to move so stealthily that their bells don’t alert their prey. So if you own a cat and live near bushland, please consider keeping it in at night.

Our latest camera experiment has been to set it up to watch the nesting box on our paperbark tree and see if it has any occupants at the moment. The box was designed for a glider but we did suspect that little ringtails had used it and the bark approach to the box showed signs of traffic. So far, we have seen nothing emerging or disappearing into the box (maybe we did not set a long enough timeframe) but our camera has caught a very active ringtail on the tree.

We would encourage STEP members to think about getting a night camera (can be used for general security, too) especially if you have a family. Encouraging kids to understand more about the world of our precious native animals and to appreciate how precarious life can be for these little creatures in our urban environment is one of the ways to safeguard them for the future.

STEP families may be interested in Country Town, a children’s picture book that will be coming out soon. Isolde Martyn (one of our long time members), Robyn Ridgeway and local illustrator Louise Hogan have created an imaginary inland town that reflects the experiences of many real towns over the last 200 years. From a First Nations People’s camp by a river crossing, young readers can follow the ups and downs in the town’s story right through to the present day. Many themes of Australian history are woven into the artwork and text so it’s a great way to learn about the past and it will be useful in triggering discussions in class and at home.

Why imaginary? Well, say the creators, it would have been very rigid having to tie it down to one location. This way it has a far wider appeal and can hopefully inspire kids, wherever they live, to think about what came before the buildings around them and how the land has been changed.

ISBN 9781922696342 (HB) 9781922696359 (PB)
Publisher: Ford Street Publishing
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

At the time of finalising an article for our last issue of STEP Matters we were still waiting for the review of environment factors (REF) for council’s project to install synthetic turf at Norman Griffiths Oval in West Pymble. This was to be the major document giving details of the stormwater mitigation works and the design specifications of the field together with the management of identified environmental risks. The details of the design had not been made available previously.

By the time this happened on 27 February there was suddenly a great urgency to get started on the project. The public was given only two weeks to review the 72 page document plus 15 appendices and seek answers to questions. The bulldozers were due to start work on 13 March.

The local stakeholder groups wanting details about the project had been told that they would have four to six weeks to review the REF. So there were many representations made demanding that there should be more time. After all, the mayor had signed the documents giving the go ahead in November 2021 while the council was in caretaker mode before the election. Council had taken 15 months to produce the report so why the rush? Was it something to do with a time limit on the payment of grants of about $1 million promised by the NSW government?

Council decided to hold an Extraordinary General Meeting to discuss the project and provided for a further opportunity for submissions at a public forum on 14 March. Council was not swayed by the arguments that more time had been granted even though we had written evidence of this commitment.

The Extraordinary General Meeting was a farce. They simply presented a resolution that the REF be noted and received. The issues raised at the public forum were treated as unimportant.

One issue was the lack of consultation with NPWS that is required as runoff from the field will end up in Lane Cove National Park via Quarry Creek. NPWS was given the same short period to review the REF. The only commitment by council with NPWS is for continuing consultation in relation to any issues that may emerge.

This is just another example of the disregard council staff have for community concerns. Similar attitudes were experienced with the St Ives Showground Plan of Management where consultation occurred after decisions had already been made.

Once the field is in use and the tonnes of cork infill are in place, the amount of infill migration off the field with regular use or heavy rain will be a watched closely. Water quality is being regularly monitored via the Streamwatch program.

The picture at the top of the page shows Norman Griffiths Oval on 15 April 2023.

Friday, 28 April 2023 22:21

Westleigh Park development

In Issues 217 and 219 of STEP Matters there was some information about the proposals for development by Hornsby Council of the land known as Westleigh Park.

The Save Westleigh Park group has been engaging with the local community explaining the draft plans that have been put out for consultation. Very few locals are aware of this significant development. It is very disappointing that council has not even put up signs in the local shopping centre to alert the locals. This development will have major impacts as there is currently only one road providing access to this major sporting complex with three fields. Does council expect people to be constantly on social media looking for local news?

The draft Master Plan and Plan of Management were approved for exhibition by councillors at the 8 March meeting. Four weeks was provided for submissions with closing date of 9 April for the draft Master Plan and 23 April for the Plan of Management.

Mountain bike trails to remain in the endangered forests

The biggest bone of contention has always been the illegal mountain bike trails in the large bushland area that totals 26 ha. This bushland includes areas of critically endangered Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest (STIF) and endangered Duffys Forest, totalling 9 ha plus several threatened species in other areas. The trails were built by the mountain bikers while the land was owned by Sydney Water and have been expanded since. They have named the complex network zigzagging through the bushland as H2O MTB Trails.

In 2021 council exhibited a preliminary master plan that proposed that most of the trails in the endangered forest be removed or relocated to the edges. Trails in the other bushland would remain and be upgraded to conform to industry standards. This caused an outraged reaction from the mountain bike community.

Council held a series of workshops to try to establish a consensus between the opposing groups of mountain bikers and local community and conservation groups. This was never going to happen. We waited with bated breath to see the final proposals that Council would come up with.

No doubt there was much lobbying going on behind the scenes. The conservationists group, now called Save Westleigh Park, were horrified to see that council was proposing to retain some of the trails and even build some new ones in the endangered forest areas. A specialist trail building company had been brought in to advise on a network that would be a ‘good experience’ and cover a range of abilities from beginner to advanced.

The total length of trails would be reduced from 9.5 to 7.3 km. The trails in STIF would be reduced from 2.45 to 0.96 km and in Duffys Forest from 1.9 to 1.5 km. However some of these trails would be new so more damage to the bushland, including the endangered forests, would be incurred.

The continuation of trails in the endangered ecological communities goes against all the principles of conservation. Council claims they are observing the Biodiversity Conservation Act hierarchy of avoid, minimise and mitigate, but they will have to resort to the last stage and try to find offsets for the loss of integrity of the forests. The STIF is critically endangered which means the forest is on the brink of extinction. There are only small areas left so suitable offsets are not available and the net effect will be a loss of healthy STIF.

Not only will the trails remain in the forest but the general public will be excluded from their use. The only consolation is a walking track that is only 150 m long plus a shared path around the boundary between the bushland and the sporting fields.

The Master Plan also does not specify when and how council will close down the trails that are to be removed and undertake the rehabilitation to undo the damage already done.

Risks to endangered ecological communities

STEP’s submission on the Master Plan focussed on the risks posed by the building and use of bikes through endangered ecological communities that threaten their survival. These include:

  • disruption of pollination
  • soil compaction that damages fungal diversity and spore dispersal
  • edge effects that change growing conditions such as light, humidity and wind
  • introduction of pathogens

By allowing these trails to continue council is evading its responsibilities under the Biodiversity Conservation Act to protect these forests.

Other issues

There are other concerns about the Master Plan many of them related to the plans to squeeze three sporting fields into the cleared areas.

The draft Plan suggests that the middle sporting field that is designed for soccer could be synthetic grass. This is highly inappropriate for an area so close to the bushland.

It is also proposed to build a link trail through the Dog Pound Creek biobanking site to the Hornsby Quarry site. This area is another critically endangered ecological community and a biobanking site. It must be protected from pathogens that could be introduced by the movement of bicycles. There is already evidence of Phytophera infestation. It is intended to close this link from use by walkers so they will lose the experience of a spectacular area of Blue Gum Diatreme Forest.

The whole development is large enough to cater for regional needs, not just local needs. Hornsby Council has received a large grant ($40 million) but this is not sufficient to cover the huge cost of the project. Rate payers will be covering much of the cost.

One major cost is the need to remove the contaminants such as asbestos and heavy metals that have arisen from the use of the site as a tip and fire-fighting training ground. These are to be localised and buried under concrete. Will this be effective? The fields will then need to be levelled which involves building up the south-west corner by 8.5 m.

Funding is not available for the whole project so it will be done in stages. The removal of the mountain bike trails in the endangered ecological communities and rehabilitation of the weed infested bushland should be a priority.

WestleighBike

The draft Berowra Valley National Park and Berowra Valley Regional Park Plan of Management was exhibited for public comment way back in March 2015 and STEP spent a busy few months liaising, assembling data and writing our submission before close of submissions in July 2015. The final Plan of Management was adopted by the Minister for Environment and Heritage on 2 February 2023, an interval of eight years.

Our comments in 2015 focused on our two main concerns, the proposed sporting fields on the two open grassed areas of approximately 2 hectares in size to the east of Schofield Trail, Stringybark Ridge, Pennant Hills and the potential mountain bike options for the park.

Future of Stringybark Ridge

In the adopted Plan of Management, the provision of sporting facilities at Stringybark Ridge has not progressed, but it has been identified as a potential site for recreational, educational or cultural activities.

Other potential options for the site include camping areas to support use of the Great North Walk and/or an area for community group activities.

The management response is to prepare a precinct plan for Stringybark Ridge to examine opportunities for future use and vegetation restoration. Vehicle and public access arrangements for Stringybark Ridge will be determined as part of the precinct plan.

STEP will be keeping an eye out for the precinct plan as our objection to sporting facilities was not about the sports per se but about the possible ecological impact of development.

Undeveloped ridgetops are particularly rare and valuable in the valleys of the Lane Cove River and Berowra Creek, and we consider that the simple fact that it is a ridge makes Stringybark Ridge of conservation significance.

In 2015 STEP argued that the construction of sporting fields and mountain bike tracks would destroy the value of Stringybark Ridge as habitat and as a corridor. Stringybark Ridge is an integral part of the corridor from the Parramatta River to the Hawkesbury River as it the closest point to Lane Cove National Park. Nomadic and migratory fauna, as well as dispersing young, all need safe corridors for survival of the species.

Environmental impacts

We were concerned about the environmental impacts around the proposed sporting fields, issues that will be similar for any development:

  • noise from traffic and sports will disrupt wildlife
  • lights that will disrupt wildlife including the threatened Powerful Owl
  • traffic causing road kill with significant risk for nocturnal animals, particularly the vulnerable Powerful Owl
  • clearing for construction of the sporting fields, roads, parking and facilities will remove native plants and increase the possibility of weeds
  • if the sports fields are grassed, impacts such as water runoff carrying nutrients will kill native plants and increase weed invasion into the bushland
  • if the sports fields are covered in synthetic grass, then there will be no habitat for ground mammals such as bandicoots, wallabies, native bees and ground feeding birds such as magpies – it will be a desert in the centre of the national park
  • fire management will be targeted at protection of life and property rather than protection of the biodiversity values

Social impacts

We were also concerned about the social impacts of the sporting fields:

  • noise – this carries for long distances in bushland areas, e.g. the rifle range at Hornsby can be heard from Stringybark Ridge
  • lights will be very visible from parts of Westleigh, Thornleigh, Pennant Hills and Cherrybrook – this is against the stated priority of protection of the high scenic quality of the ridgelines found within the planning area, particularly along the Great North Walk and from other vantage points within Berowra Valley National Park
  • at present walkers can safely enter the planning area at the park gate – if the sporting fields go ahead, entry will be along a noisy and dangerous road
  • a reduction in bushland quality caused by many factors, e.g. weeds and native vegetation being managed for asset protection rather than for biodiversity conservation

Mountain bike options

Mountain bikes were a concern in 2015 but Garigal National Park was chosen as the preferred option for mountain bike facilities. In 2015 the draft Plan of Management stated in Management Response 3.6.8:

Permit cycling on designated management trails and public roads and investigate future opportunities for mountain bike access in the region.

In the 2023 adopted plan, 3.6.8 has been altered to:

Investigate and enable, where appropriate, future opportunities for mountain bike access as part of ongoing discussions with stakeholders and other land managers regarding cross-tenure options across the northern Sydney region. Any new construction will be with a focus on linking cross-tenure mountain biking opportunities.

Cycling is permitted along designated management trails and public roads. Cycling is not permitted on walking tracks. The construction of unauthorised mountain bike tracks remains illegal.

According to management purposes and principles:

The primary purpose of national parks is to conserve nature and cultural heritage. Opportunities are provided for appropriate visitor use in a manner that does not damage conservation values.

Getting the balance between visitor use and conservation correct is always controversial.

Quality of the document

STEP has many criticisms of the quality of the documentation in the plan. The whole geology section needs to be re-written with a correct balance between geology, landscape and soil. The naming and detail of species is inconsistent. Fish and mangroves are completely overlooked despite them being such important ecosystems.

The Centre for Population, part of federal Treasury, was established in 2019 to improve data collection on how Australia’s population is changing and the implications of these changes.

The Centre makes an annual statement of population including analysis of changes over the past year. The 2022 statement has recently been released. This report also covers projections of future population levels out to 2033 as well as analysis of the impact of COVID on recent migration and mortality experience. It is good to see regular information in one location instead of previously having to delve into ABS and Department of Immigration website data.

This report brought out the usual hype in the media about the need for new migrants to stave off the ageing population burden and labour skill shortages. There is only limited discussion of the impact the growth will have on significant aspects of social and environmental wellbeing, such as cost of housing and biodiversity.

Projections for next 10 years

The baseline assumption of future net overseas migration (NOM) is 235,000 per annum based on the average over recent years prior to the COVID-19 slowdowns plus some adjustment for policies increasing permanent placements. Despite the COVID experience we are still trying to catch up on the demand for services and infrastructure that was generated by the escalation of growth that was started by the Howard government in 2006 and has been perpetuated by subsequent Labor and Coalition governments ever since. Prior to 2006 NOM was half that level or less.

Our current population is 26.1 million (as at September 2022). The projection in the Population Statement 2022 is that we will reach 30 million by mid-2033. However, the level of migration has been ramped up since the Labor government came to power as a backlog of applications is being processed and international students are flooding back. It is estimated that the NOM for the next two years will be 650,000 so that growth including natural increase (births less deaths) will approach 950,000. No wonder there is a housing crisis! The slowdown during the COVID-19 shutdown is becoming irrelevant.

Intergenerational report — projections to 2060

The 2021 Intergenerational Report provides longer term projections of the outlook for the economy and budget.

This report used the same assumption for NOM of 235,000 pa for the whole 40 years of their projections. The total population in 40 years’ time is projected to be an eye-watering 39 million. That is a 13 million more people, a 50% increase! The growth over the past 40 years was 11 million. We can see the impact of that number. To use the hackneyed catch phrase, it is unsustainable. Liveability of our cities has declined. The State of the Environment Report 2021 showed significant declines in biodiversity. Surveys have highlighted that citizens do not want this high rate of growth to continue.

The governments at state and federal level express plans to stop species extinctions, reduce carbon emissions and improve liveability but they carry on, regardless of popular opinion, doing nothing to stop the forces that go against these policies; vegetation clearing, bigger houses, more roads.

Apparently, there is no contemplation that our growth will ever slow down. The concept of longer term planning whereby the growth can be reduced over time is anathema to the politicians and business even though it would be welcomed by voters. We have to accept the reality of adapting by increasing skill levels, retraining the existing workforce and increasing workforce participation into retirement age. The easy option is still being taken by importing skills from countries that need them more. The hard decisions are being left to future generations.

Alternative viewpoints

Sustainable Population Australia, an environmental advocacy organisation, has recently published some discussion papers with academic analysis calling into question the status quo.

The housing crisis is a population growth crisis

Some of the key points made are:

  • The connection between population growth – driven by high immigration – and high housing cost inflation is often ignored or denied in political circles but is accepted as an undeniable fact by almost everyone knowledgeable about the property industry.
  • An accumulation of ill-advised policy measures (e.g. negative gearing, reduction in capital gains tax and first home buyer grants) have combined with accelerated population growth to create a perfect housing storm.
  • A lower net migration level is needed to slow growth and stabilise population size. Even an optimally regulated market will not prevent housing inflation in the face of endless population growth.
  • Lower, well-targeted immigration will not cause intractable skills shortages or unmanageable population ageing, but will reduce housing stress and inequality, and improve environmental amenity.

How many Australians? The need for Earth-centric ethics

This discussion paper has been written by Dr Paul Collins, an historian, broadcaster and the author of 17 books on Catholicism, the papacy, environmental ethics and population issues.

The paper addresses the competing demands of human beings seeking a better life with the rights of our natural systems to prevail against the demands of human activities.

Despite its physical size, Australia is limited in biophysical and geophysical terms. All our State of Environment reports have found the demands of the current population have been degrading natural systems irreversibly. We are not living sustainably with the numbers we have at current standards of living.

Millions want to come and share the riches we enjoy. Do we have a moral duty to let them come and allow them a better life? Or should we protect the ecosystems in our care?

He calls for a totally new moral principle to guide and govern our ethical behaviour as a species. He argues that we must shift our ethics away from anthropocentrism and economism which pays no heed to our dependence on the natural world. Instead, moral decision-making must give priority to the Earth, biodiversity, climate stability and the integrity of natural systems.

We have been part of Ku-ring-gai Council’s microbat surveys for some time as part of the Pool to Pond program.

Our recent report noted that the water quality in our pond in Kingsford Avenue was excellent and that five species of microbats have been visiting our pond, one of the highest numbers recorded in Ku-ring-gai.

These include the three most common bats:

  • Gould’s Wattled Bat (Chalinolobus gouldii) found at 41 sites
  • Little Bent-winged Bat (Miniopterus australis) found at 33 sites and vulnerable
  • Ride’s Free-tailed Bat (Ozimops ridei) found at 32 sites

as well as the more elusive Little Forest Bat (Vespadelus vulturnus) and the White-striped Freetail Bat (Austronomus australis) pictured above.

Seven species of microbats have been found across Ku-ring-gai. We are sure other STEP members will have contributed to the survey and the biodiversity of our area.

All this is very re-assuring in that Kingsford Avenue was where STEP began in 1978 and is still on the job!

Margaret and John Booth, have provided this good news story.

The Albanese government has passed revisions to the Safeguard Mechanism legislation with the help of the Greens in the Senate. This is a vital part of ensuring that Australia meets its commitment to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 43% relative to 2005 levels by 2030 and 100% by 2050. By ‘net emissions’ it is meant actual emissions less offsets.

Two of the main mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been the facilitation of adoption of renewable energy through the renewable energy target schemes and reducing demand through use of more efficient products such as LED lights and home insulation. Many industries have initiated emission reductions by using more efficient production methods.

The legislated government policy tools applied to industry have been the so-called Safeguard Mechanism and Emissions Reduction Fund. We have written before about the questioning of the effectiveness and integrity of the Emissions Reduction Fund in reducing carbon emissions through the creation of carbon offsets.

The Safeguard Mechanism was introduced by the Abbott government in 2016. It applied to larger companies that emitted more than 100,000 tonnes CO2 equivalent per annum; 215 companies came under the scheme that were producing 28% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The most significant are the big miners, cement and steel manufacturers.

The principle behind this mechanism was that limits would be applied to emissions. If they were exceeded, penalties could be imposed that were meant to be disincentives for exceeding the limits. However, under the Coalition Government, the Safeguard Mechanism has been a farce. National pollution ‘limits’, or company baselines, were set at levels that were way higher than the amount that companies were polluting. If these companies did happen to exceed the very high ‘limits’ that were set, the government of the day would often just let them set new ones anyway, without any penalty.

As a result the total emissions by the affected companies actually increased by 7% from June 2016 to June 2021. In 2020–21, aggregate baselines were set at 180 Mt CO2-e, compared with actual covered emissions of 137 Mt CO2-e.

Under the amended legislation the baseline for each company for 2023–24 year will be set at a level using a production based intensity standard. Beyond 1 July 2023, baselines for new facilities will generally be set in line with ‘international best practice, adapted for an Australian context’. This will also apply to existing facilities if they begin producing new products.

The baseline will be reduced by 5% each year in order to achieve the overall target of a 43% reduction on 2005 emission by 2030. Actually it is not that simple as there is some flexibility by using rolling averages. The total baseline is set in terms of the total emissions over the 10 years to 2030

Companies that reduce emissions below their baseline will receive credits, which they can sell to higher emitting companies. This will provide an incentive to adopt new technologies if they cost less than the price they will receive for the credits. If it is too costly to reduce emissions companies can buy credits within the scheme or offsets from an external source.

Companies cannot simply buy their way out using offsets. Where they rely on offsets to meet more than 30% of their emissions reductions requirements, they will be required to justify their reason for doing so to the Clean Energy Regulator.

Provision for new industries and mines

There is a defined hard cap on the total carbon pollution produced within the scheme, so that new or expanded projects cannot blow out plans to cut national emissions – particularly new coal and gas. If a new facility starts operating the overall baselines of the existing facilities may have to be reduced accordingly in order to maintain the total cap.

New coal and gas developments will have to be net zero for their direct scope one emissions, which means they will have to offset all pollution released in the production process, a step that makes it more expensive to get a project up. All new gas fields for liquefied natural gas export projects will also need to be net zero for CO2 emissions.

The requirement for net zero carbon, combined with the benchmark expectation that no more than 30% of emissions reductions be achieved through offsetting, suggests that carbon capture and storage is likely to be a significant element of the abatement solution for those oil and gas projects that do proceed. But this technology is still unproven.

Are offsets genuine reductions in emissions?

After much publicity questioning the integrity of the offsets scheme known as the Emissions Reduction Fund, the government commissioned an independent review by Ian Chubb, former Chief Scientist. The report released in January concluded the scheme is essentially sound. But key questions raised by a research team at ANU remain unaddressed.

While a carbon credit is meant to represent a reduction of one tonne of CO2, scientists say an offset created through forest regeneration is not equal to a tonne released from fossil fuels. The latter can persist in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. The former is much less likely to survive as long.

Friday, 28 April 2023 23:01

Vale Harry Locke

STEP members were sad to hear about the death of Harry Locke in February. Harry and his wife Neroli were key players in the fight to save both the Lane Cove Valley from the proposed freeway and a large area of Blue Gum Forest that is now part of the Dalrymple Hay Nature Reserve in St Ives.

They also transformed weedy bushland in South Wahroonga and were instrumental in trialling a new stormwater detention system on the edge of Lane Cove National Park. Also they were instrumental in rescuing the historic cobbled road at the end of Fox Valley Road from housing development.

For many years STEP’s Christmas barbeques were held just behind their house in Leuna Avenue amongst an array of native plantings.

Friday, 28 April 2023 23:02

Vale Will Steffen

One of Australia’s leading climate scientists, Prof Will Steffen, died in January. Steffen has been hailed as a brilliant climate thinker, selfless mentor and gifted communicator. His death is a great loss to climate science and understanding of earth systems.

Some of his friends and colleagues wrote about their relationship with Will in an article in The Conversation, published on 31 January.

Will joined the CSIRO as an editor and information officer but he was soon headhunted to the nascent International Geosphere Biosphere Program, an international consortium of scientists which aimed at understanding the physical, chemical and biological processes that regulate the whole Earth system. He eventually served as the IGBP’s executive director from 1998 to 2004.This was the early 1980s, when the field now known as Earth system science was just taking off.

Will was a visionary in many ways. He understood that the environmental problems we were trying to solve spanned many academic disciplines and were deeply interconnected. Few people had his ability to absorb so many diverse types of science and to work with the diverse research communities whose expertise was urgently needed as part of the solutions.

Will co-developed a number of influential ideas in sustainability science, such as:

  • The planetary boundaries framework that shows us that the environment is not boundless and elastic and able to absorb all that we throw at it or take from it. Our planet has limits – and if we push too far, we will break something, leading to dramatic changes to the planet.
  • The concept of the Great Acceleration which describes the dramatic increase in human environmental impact since the 1950s, brought about by population growth and fossil-fuel burning.
  • The concept of the Anthropocene (that the planet has entered a new geological epoch because of human activity).

Viewing the world in this way helps us understand what we have done to our environment – and how to begin fixing the problems.

In 2011, he was appointed to the Australian government’s Climate Commission, which was dedicated to deepening public understanding of climate change and its impacts. When commission was abolished by Tony Abbott in 2013, Steffen co-founded the Climate Council of Australia to continue the work, funded by public donations. They raised $1 million in a week! Will authored, reviewed and publicly launched numerous reports that clearly explained to the public the risks and dangers of climate change.

Will Steffen epitomised the ethos of a social contract between scientist and society in his pursuit and sharing of knowledge relevant to the grand challenge of climate change. His visionary academic publications represent a track record of which any scientist would be proud, but his even greater legacy is the thousands of people he educated and inspired to work for a better future. From Nature 615, 29 (2023)

Ever heard of Stockwellia? No? Well actually me neither, till reading this book! Stockwellia quadrifida is a rainforest giant found in groves high on the slopes of Mt Bartle Frere, North Queensland, but it’s much more than that: it's of family Myrtaceae and actually an ancestral eucalypt, regarded as potentially one of the source genera that evolved into the vast numbers of Eucalyptus, Corymbia and Angophora species that spread across our huge continent from tens of millions of years ago. But even beyond this tree, the ancient lineages preserved in the wet tropics rainforest floras are a wonder and globally unique dating back to the evolution of flowering plants and beyond.

Stockwellia is but one of the many information gems in this book, which starts by tracking the evolution of the wet tropics from their geological past through the waxing and waning of rainforest and dry savannas, and then the First Nations rainforest people in harmony with the landscape. But then came the destructive invasion of European settlers. The latter is carried by a disturbing series of chapters that necessitate a strong drink before reading – these have the potential to make one deeply ashamed of one's country’s past.

Understanding such settlement dates back to the Britain I grew up in, where of course most of the settlers came from. There was a book by W.G. Hoskins titled The Making of the English Landscape that led to a widely acclaimed BBC TV series. My parents watched it and told me they were astonished to learn that the English landscape is largely man made: the farmlands, fields and surviving forest copses were modelled by man, dating from back in the Bronze Age. The loss of trees in Britain has been such that only 12% forest cover survives, the second lowest in Europe after Malta, and much is not native.

The highland and lowland forests of Queensland's wet tropics met a British pastoral landscape fate, only protected where growing on steep, rugged terrain, and not even there if red cedars grew – these were cut and dragged to be floated down rivers like the Barron (where the majority were smashed to pieces on the 230 metre high Barron Falls!).

Unmanaged forestry and land clearing continued right through the 19th and 20th centuries; amplified by certain governments that I don’t need to name. Development ran right up to the Daintree, where of course environmental protest became a global news item – ‘get them out of the way’, ‘they’re not fair dinkum’ and ‘we must build our road’!

So where does the author come in – well Penny van Oosterzee is an adjunct prof at James Cook Uni, has been an environmental consultant and is a multiple award winner with many books published. She and her family bought a large tract of remnant rainforest and pasture called Thiaki, not far south of Malanda. Based on vast amounts of research and local knowledge dating back to First Nations forest practice, they began to restore the areas of cleared pasture. From the photos in the book they’ve been highly successful, but there’s a long road still to travel, and vastly more restoration investment is needed across the region. World Heritage listing was a huge step forward but the challenges in the face of climate change and other obstacles such as government and public ignorance and disinterest are huge.

Penny van Oosterzee, Allen & Unwin, 2023; 312 pp

Reviewed by John Martyn

 

The Mirvac development of the former IBM business park at West Pennant Hills is proceeding. In September 2021 the application to demolish the existing buildings and remove 1,253 trees was approved. This has now been completed despite a lot of community concern about the disturbance to wildlife during the spring breeding season.

In October 2022 Mirvac’s Concept Development Applications for the next stage of the project came before the Sydney City Central Planning Panel. This involved the technicalities of subdividing the land into sections relating to the various types of building – 252 apartments and 165 medium density houses. Plus the removal of another 1,877 trees. There were many objections to the application for a height variation but the Hills Council had no objection to the apartment buildings being eight storeys instead of the LEP standard of six storeys.

So the concept DA has been approved. The only amendments to the conditions of consent related to protection of the Powerful Owls that have a nest site close to development footprint, use of wildlife friendly fencing and fauna sensitive lighting.

Forest in Danger found a big surprise in the documents submitted with the DAs. The future of the 10.3 ha of high quality forest containing critically endangered Blue Gum High Forest and Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest has been the subject of much controversy. The community believed they had a victory when Mirvac agreed to a Voluntary Planning Agreement dedicating the land to Forestry Corporation NSW so it could be managed as part of the Cumberland State Forest next door. This dedication of the land, defined as the Forest Dedication Land, was believed to be a condition of consent to be approved by the Panel.

Low and behold when the documents were submitted with the DA it was found that the Voluntary Planning Agreement dedicated ownership of the land to the minister for planning and would be only ‘managed’ by Forestry Corporation NSW. Not only that, Mirvac could request that the minister approve a change to the boundaries, and that the minister could approve or refuse the request at their absolute discretion and also request a change. So this land is no longer conserved in perpetuity. It appears that Mirvac can sell off some of the Forest Dedication Land. Forest in Danger has sent an objection.

I have to admit I didn’t know anything about the location of Westleigh until the Westleigh Park Master Plan development was announced by Hornsby Council. Westleigh is a small suburb on a ridge surrounded by Berowra Valley National Park and bushland along Waitara Creek and the biobanking site of Dog Pound Creek. The only road into Westleigh is Quarter Sessions Road with access via busy Duffy Avenue.

For the past two years Hornsby Council has been developing a plan for the development of the land known as Westleigh Park. This area of 36 ha was bought by council from Sydney Water in 2016. The water reservoir next to the park is still managed by Sydney Water. Currently council land has:

  • a 26 ha area of bushland that is riddled with unauthorised mountain bike tracks – see STEP Matters Issue 217 for a story about what should be happening here
  • a cleared area of 10 ha that was a land fill site and is predominately tufted grasses and unmaintained Kikuyu and weeds
  • a Rural Fire Service building on the northern side so that land has been used for training

There has been community consultation and now it is expected that a final draft of the master plan will go before council soon.

The plan is for the creation of an extensive sporting field complex on the cleared land including three sporting fields, small areas for passive recreation and road access and parking areas. One of the fields may be synthetic which is inappropriate for an area so close to bushland. Preparation of the land for this development will be a major expensive exercise owing to contamination, its topography and need to control run-off into the nearby bushland.

Major traffic issue

One essential prerequisite for the creation of the park is improved road access. Council is expecting to get approval from Sydney Water to extend Sefton Road from Chilvers Road around the reservoir to Quarter Sessions Road. This will increase traffic significantly along Sefton Road through the industrial area of Thornleigh and the quiet suburban areas of Westleigh. A traffic study has forecast an extra 1,500 car movements a day at the Sefton and Chilvers Road intersection.

One possible solution for the problems the development will cause is to reduce the number of sporting fields and make the road only open for emergency access.

New alliance of community groups

A group of ten local community groups (including Westleigh Progress Association, Friends of Berowra Valley, Protecting Your Suburban Environment and STEP) have formed a new alliance called Save Westleigh Park to keep both residents and businesses updated on council's current ill-planned schemes, as well as the significant impacts the development will have.

Council's community engagement with Westleigh residents has been poor. A recent council-run public meeting about the traffic impacts was only attended by 11 residents with seven apologies, as the meeting was by council invitation only. Yet obviously the traffic impacts are much wider than just those residents. Click here for the latest traffic study.

Action

Make your concerns about this proposed enormous regional sporting complex and its significant lasting impacts known through the traffic petition and the save Westleigh Park petition.

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:20

Eden Gardens office tower refused

Early in 2021 the owner of the Eden Gardens nursery complex on Lane Cove Road in Macquarie Park submitted a DA for an 18 storey office tower right on the edge of Lane Cove National Park. Ryde Council knocked back the application mainly for reasons of visual impact, traffic and height relative to surrounding areas.

The next stage would be a hearing before the North Sydney Planning Panel. In the meantime discussions were held with council and the panel trying to persuade the proponent to modify the plan to no avail.

The hearing was suddenly announced to be in December 2022. After all that time the applicant has not been able to obtain concurrence from the Rural Fire Service, Transport NSW and an Aboriginal Heritage Impacts Permit.

It was inevitable that the panel would refuse the application. Their determination summarised the situation that:

An acceptable redevelopment proposal of the site is more likely to be developed with close cooperation between the applicant and council. Such a dynamic has been lacking to date, as evidenced by the disagreements documented in the assessment report.

The next step will be a Land and Environment Court hearing in March. We hope the plans are considerably modified before that takes place.

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:20

A new owner for Naamaroo

In November 2022 the Friends of Lane Cove National Park alerted us to the news that Naamaroo was on the market. This area of land, 6.2 ha, is next to Lane Cove National Park with an entrance in Lady Game Drive. It has been owned by the Uniting Church and has been used as a convention centre and children’s recreation camp.

Letters to the NPWS and the Uniting Church calling for the bushland (at least) to be added to the national park were dismissed. Given the interesting history of the site, it was very appropriate to add the site to the national park.

Tony Butteriss, President of Friends of Lane Cove National Park, undertook detailed research into the history of the site as documented in the December issue of their magazine Regenavitis.

In summary, the Naamaroo land was part of the Moore Estate that gifted 238 acres from the estate in 1938 to establish Lane Cove National Park. The trustees of the estate retained control over the land. Later part of this Moore Estate was gifted to the Congregational Church (now the Uniting Church). There is a record of sub-division and transfer made in 1961. This land became the Naamaroo property.

The property has been bought by The King’s School for $14 million.

The land is zoned as RE2 or private recreation, one of the objectives of which is to protect and enhance the natural environment for recreational purposes. While this zoning places an emphasis on caring for the environment there is scope for development. However we have been advised by Kings that the existing uses will continue and the property will be available for general community use as currently applies.

The letter from The King’s School states:

As a new member of the Lindfield community, we look forward to getting to know all interested locals and hearing what makes Naamaroo special to you. As a school acquiring the property from a church, there may be some differences in the way the site is operated, and we want to partner with the community to ensure any change minimises impacts to nearby residents and local road users.

There is little doubt that this area was once part of the national park and we hope that the bushland will be cared for in the same manner as a national park.

Manly Warringah War Memorial Park Is an area of 375 ha that covers the Manly Dam, its catchment area and the immediate bushland area below the dam. The Save Manly Dam Catchment Committee has worked for many years on looking after the bush in the catchment and restoring the Mermaid Pool below the dam that was a rubbish dump site.

Manly Dam was given heritage status because of the area's long history going back to the 1890s when the dam was built to be the major water source for Manly. The preservation of the dam's catchment is one of the reasons that we are so lucky to still have this amazing area of quality bushland that supports high biodiversity including many threatened species so close to the centre of Sydney. Areas like this are rare so that the highest possible level of protection should be applied.

The local community through the Save Manly Dam Catchment Committee has demonstrated their strong support for the area with many hours put into removing rubbish at the Mermaid Pool and volunteer bushcare works. It is an excellent site for citizen science projects.

The park has a long history of use by the Gayamaygal people, with evidence of engraving sites, and the bushland vegetation provided bush tucker and material for a huge range of tools like rope, fishing nets, medicine, shields and canoes.

Manly Dam is an example of rare concrete-walled gravity dam that pioneered wall strengthening methods and technology and was a world first for its time. It no longer provides its original use as a water supply and now is a valuable recreation area.

At the declaration ceremony the Environment Minister and local member, James Griffin, claimed that heritage listing will help protect this treasured area and its stories for generations of Sydneysiders to continue enjoying into the future. But will it?

Beaches link tunnel proposal

The Beaches Link tunnels proposal is a massively expensive road project that is yet to receive funding commitments. It will greatly encourage the use of private cars and goes against the NSW Government’s commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

This video demonstrates the damage that the project will do to the catchment of the Manly Dam caused by the widening of Wakehurst Parkway. Bushland and flying fox habitat along Burnt Creek will be destroyed.

This article in STEP Matters Issue 209 provides more information on the environmental damage the project will cause.

There has not been any serious consideration of alternatives such as improved bus lanes or a metro to Chatswood from the Northern Beaches Hospital.

In October, at NSW’s Local Government Annual Conference, a motion calling for better protection of wildlife on development sites was passed unanimously. The government now has to agree to implement standards to ensure that native wildlife found on development sites are given a chance of survival. We have standards for occupational health and safety, contamination and waste management so why not caring for wildlife?

Currently an approved Fauna Management Plan is required before a development can proceed but the quality can vary. The plan explains how wildlife that is found should be handled. They are dependent on the experience of the ecologist writing the report along with the developer expectations.

Poor plans are becoming more prevalent as there is more development of greenfield sites and densification of suburbs with canopy cover and flora and fauna corridors. Some plans even provide for injured animals to be euthanised on site. Often wildlife carers have to perform rescues as animals try to escape or are injured.

It all started at the Mirvac site in West Pennant Hills and the fact that they were removing thousands of trees but the planning documents had very few provisions made for protecting the wildlife living in them. There were no requirements to check whether nests, hollows or burrows were occupied and then relocate the birds, possums, echidnas or wombats. It’s the same across all development sites and yet wildlife carers have to follow very stringent codes of practice for any of their interactions with wildlife. Plus all native wildlife in NSW is protected by law – so the question asked by the local community was, where are these protections? And what is happening that they are not being applied?

The issue was raised by some local Hills Shire councillors but the proposal for a motion was defeated by the liberal-dominated council. So the group turned to Hornsby Council. After much discussion between many councillors, community members, journalists, vets, wildlife carers and a lot of persistence Hornsby Council councillors agreed to present this motion before the conference in August.

As Cr Salitra said in presenting her motion to Hornsby Council:

Legislating standards for wildlife on development sites will provide certainty for all stakeholders – the developer, ecologists, tradespeople, wildlife carers and our community. Certainty in procedure will provide clarity on who and what these standards apply to for all stakeholders in a currently grey area. And they will result in more efficiency on development sites, where these repeatable actions become the norm.

Why has it taken so long to implement these standards?

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:23

NPWS cycling strategy

In STEP Matters Issue 213 we commented in detail on the new draft NPWS cycling strategy. This is a highly controversial issue so many submissions were made.

The final documents have now been published and can be downloaded from the NPWS website. As the website states:

National parks managers will now have guidelines to improve sustainable cycling experiences and manage unauthorised tracks in consultation with stakeholders, while fulfilling legal requirements to protect our natural and cultural heritage.

Compared with the draft the final documents are much simplified. There is now greater emphasis on the need to protect the environment and prevent damage being done by unauthorised tracks. We hope there will be enough funding and staff resources to actively close down and rehabilitate these tracks that have proliferated in recent years. There is likely to be strong opposition from the mountain biking lobby so a determined level of enforcement will be required.

There are two documents:

  • the actual strategy
  • guidelines for implementation

Submissions were highly critical of a point scoring system in the draft guidelines that takes into account a multitude of criteria for deciding whether a proposed track route is suitable. This seems to be highly discretionary. The proof of its effectiveness will be revealed in time. However the important decision up front as to whether or not a new track should be built or unauthorised track approved is now more definitely defined and simplified.

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:24

Warragamba Dam wall raising

Nothing has been happening with the Warragamba Dam wall raising proposal for some time. The idea was first raised by Premier Michael Baird in June 2016. The cost is prohibitive and the EIS has been roundly criticised for lack of detailed analysis of the impact on indigenous sites and biodiversity. Also the EIS relies upon biodiversity and cultural surveys conducted before the unprecedented wildfires of 2019–20.

The federal environment minister still has to give the go-ahead to a project that will damage the World Heritage Blue Mountains. There is no funding contribution promise from the federal government or commitment from the NSW Government.

Yet the premier, Dominic Perrottet announced suddenly in October that the project is declared to be critical state significant infrastructure. This apparently will be an election winner for the Liberal Government in western Sydney even though flood modelling shows that it will not solve the problem of inundation of some suburbs as much of the water comes from rivers that enter the Hawkesbury Nepean system below the dam wall.

Critical state development means it can progress more quickly through approval processes and will be more difficult to oppose in the courts.

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment is now reviewing further community input on the proposal to raise Warragamba Dam wall, following the release of WaterNSW’s response to submissions and a preferred infrastructure report. The response dismissed most of the concerns raised in the 2,500 submissions. It even opens the possibility for changing the World Heritage area boundaries, in an attempt to avoid Australia’s international obligations.

The report reveals that health officials mirrored the concerns of Sydney Water, saying they had:

…concerns for drinking water quality during the construction and operation of the flood mitigation works proposed.

The extra water held behind the raised dam wall was: ‘likely to affect water quality’ in the dam during periods of flooding because of ‘increasing turbidity, colour and organic material’ from new parts of the catchment.

Victoria has legislated to enable backyard fruit growers who use the wrong netting and those who sell or advertise it, to be fined. The fine for using fruit netting that doesn't meet the new specifications will be $3,303 and also a fine of $660 will apply to anyone advertising the illegal netting or offering it for sale.

During the 2021–22 summer Wildlife Victoria found nearly 300 cases of wildlife caught and injured in domestic fruit tree netting. That ranged from flying foxes, which were the majority of cases, magpies, rainbow lorikeets, sulphur-crested cockatoos and possums. They suspect the numbers could be a lot higher as, in a lot of cases, the animals are already deceased or they may be unreported.

Domestic fruit growers will be required to use netting with an aperture of 5 × 5 mm at full stretch. A finger can’t get into that size.

Please contact your local MP or the NSW Agriculture Minister, Dugald Saunders, to request that the same legislation be enacted in NSW.

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:25

Norman Griffiths synthetic turf

We are still waiting for the review of environment factors for Ku-ring-gai Council’s project to install synthetic turf at Norman Griffiths Oval in West Pymble. See STEP Matters Issue 217 for more background. It is over a year now since council decided to proceed with the project.

We understand that council is waiting for the Chief Scientist’s report on guidelines for the use of synthetic turf to be released. That, we understand, was completed in August and is still sitting on the planning minister’s desk, probably until after the election. What has he got to hide?

On the subject of synthetic turf, the Natural Turf Alliance has a new website with lots of information about synthetic turf and the alternative of natural grass.

The Natural Turf Alliance is a registered association consisting of community groups, including STEP, committed to preserving and developing natural grass open spaces including sporting fields.

As reported in STEP Matters Issue 216 Hornsby Council voted in favour of changing the zoning and other conditions in the LEP in relation to land in the Byles Creek Valley.

This decision has now been translated into a planning proposal that has been agreed by the mayor and councillors to go to the state government for their approval.

Once approved by the government, this proposal will allow changes to the R2-zoned land to more environmentally sensitive C4 zoning. This will prevent any further subdivision of the large lots in the subject area with associated wholesale clearing to provide asset protection zones. There will be greater protection of the riparian zone which is the land adjacent to the watercourse, in most places 30 m wide on each side of the creek.

Four years ago members of the Byles Creek Valley Union were told by their local member, Dominic Perrottet, that funds were in place to acquire some of the privately held bushland and he promised that he would take steps to start the process. Despite several follow ups this promise is still to be actioned.

The Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment (FOKE) has initiated a fascinating project aiming to gain aspiring georegion status for the Ku-ring-gai region.

UNESCO global geoparks are single, unified geographical areas where sites and landscapes of international geological significance are managed with a holistic concept of protection, education and sustainable development. The Ku-ring-gai region is well known for its significant natural and cultural heritage values. The georegion would cover the national parks as well as the coastal cliffs and lagoons. An integral part of a georegion is the development of geotourism projects such as educational trails focussing on the geology and landscape.

FOKE has support from local councils, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, community groups and politicians. They have had significant support from the Australian Geoscience Council and the Linnean Society of NSW.

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:29

Linnean Society Symposium

The northeastern Sydney Basin is bounded by Sydney Harbour to the south, the Hunter River to the north, the coastline to the east, and the boundary of Yengo National Park to the west. Much of this area lies within the distinctive lower Triassic Sydney Sandstone outcrop with its spectacular geomorphology and characteristic floral communities.

At the symposium, 16 papers were presented on current research into the geology and geodiversity, flora, fauna and Aboriginal occupation of the region. The afternoon session promoted the concept of a Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion (click here to buy a copy of these papers).

Stephen Gale spoke on the origin of the Hawkesbury River and its varying paths; Wendy Grimm explained her research into the endangered lesser-known terrestrial orchid Genoplesium baueri; Michael Gillings and Vanessa McPherson presented their findings on local fungi (a welcome reminder of their talk to STEP last year); Jonathan Sanders gave clues to the vegetation you might find around local volcanic dykes; Doug Benson’s subject was the last glacial maximum and its effects on our plants; and Chris Mays’ group looked at mass extinctions in an end-Permian event and the causative role of climate change.

The Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion project aims to unify the much-loved values of Sydney’s northern natural areas through geosites and geotrails. The project includes Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, the Northern Beaches coastline, Muogamarra Nature Reserve and the eastern section of the Berowra Valley National Park.

John Martyn, eminent geologist and STEP committee member, spoke of the unique geological formations; Ian Percival spoke on the Hornsby Diatreme whose western face he has worked hard to preserve for the public; John Illingsworth and Peter Mitchell showed how drones can help produce 3D photogrammetric models and digital elevation models, that is to say, fantastic pictures of the Northern Beaches cliffs!

Jayden Walsh described the varied fauna; Bob Conroy related Aboriginal sites to landscape features; David Robson noted benefits to tourism; Angus Robinson concluded the day broadening our local project within an Australia-wide movement: in 2021 the Australian Geoscience Council launched its National Geotourism Strategy. Its aim is to enrich nature-based tourism, the main motivator for travel to Australia, embracing the ABC of tourism: abiotic landscapes and geology, biotic flora and fauna and cultural Aboriginal history.

The symposium was ideal for participants with an interest in the area but not necessarily scientific training. The Linnean Society of NSW has done an excellent job with the symposium and the field day visiting our scenic wonders.

Since 2010 the Linnean Society NSW has been organising field symposia highlighting aspects of natural history. In November 2022 they hosted a symposium entitled Natural History of the Northeastern Sydney Basin. Thanks to Margery Street for this summary.

KCNP’s current plan of management is over 20 years old and its review is moving at a glacial pace. In August 2019 a series of discussion papers were released for public comment and ideas. It took until January 2022 for a summary of these submissions to be published. Then, finally, a new draft plan of management was open for submissions up until November 2022.

The plan needs to be updated to allow for the large increase in usage of the park and waterways and demand for facilities such as car parks, tracks and trails. Then there is climate change.

Nor does the plan mention the work being undertaken advocating for KCNP to be declared a UNESCO georegion. Success with this project will enhance international recognition and tourism potential of the high quality landscapes of the parks. A detailed plan of management is prerequisite for a successful nomination.

The main issue with the plan of management is that there is no plan; there are suggestions for adaptive reuse, precinct plans to come, proposed strategies, tourism initiatives and memoranda of understandings but few concrete proposals and timeframes on which to comment. It is mostly business as usual.

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:31

Barrenjoey lighthouse precinct

The future of Barrenjoey lighthouse has long been a bone of contention. The submission summary reported that adaptive re-use of heritage buildings at Barrenjoey Head is supported by some but not for short-term accommodation or other commercial purposes.

Nevertheless the government has just announced a proposal for Airbnb or short- term accommodation at the cottages on the headland. Turning these cottages into holiday rentals would not occur before 2025 following heritage and planning approvals, upgrade works and community consultation. This has sparked strong local community opposition. Time will tell what the outcome will be.

Saturday, 04 February 2023 21:32

Successful habitat also includes darkness

In 2018 the Powerful Owl Coalition highlighted the importance of reducing artificial lights near bushland in the publication Protecting Powerful Owls in Urban Areas. They recommended avoiding public lighting that illuminated the full height of trees as this would impact both Powerful Owls and their prey and keeping lighting, particularly bright artificial sports lighting, away from riparian areas, other core habitat and nesting sites.

Since then, the Powerful Owl Coalition, STEP, Byles Creek Valley Union, PYSE Inc and the Powerful Owl Project of Birdlife Australia have been writing to Hornsby Council and other authorities about the importance of darkness for fauna, both nocturnal and diurnal as the ratio of light to darkness helps regulate many aspects of wellbeing for fauna.

Indeed, the effects of artificial light at night can be so profound that it can change reproduction, feeding, sleep, and protection from predators to the degree that apparent habitat cannot be used by some fauna species.

Since 2018 most of our submissions addressed artificial light proposals for Hornsby Park (the Quarry) and Westleigh Park as the proposals for increased use of these sites would include night lighting. Both these sites include known populations of Powerful Owls which have a conservation status in NSW of vulnerable to extinction.

In December 2022 the Powerful Owl Coalition wrote to Hornsby Council about the Beecroft to Cheltenham Bike Track, a track that passes through an area famed for its Powerful Owl population. As a result, council contacted the Powerful Owl Project and discussed these matters further with their co-ordinator.

As a result of the submission and these discussions, the Powerful Owl Coalition received a prompt reply from council. They were overjoyed. Huge steps have been made for the protection of wildlife, not just Powerful Owls, by the proposed lighting for the bike track and in the revised Australian Standard AS4282.

The specifications for lighting the Beecroft to Cheltenham Bike Track align well with the National Light Pollution Guidelines for Wildlife Including Marine Turtles, Seabirds and Migratory Shorebirds (Australian Government, 2020).

Further comments from council’s reply are given below:

The Coalition may be interested to know that our lighting consultant actually sits on the AS4282 committee as a co-opted expert and that the new revision of the standard (which should be coming out next year) includes spill lighting limits for Environmentally Sensitive Areas which includes ‘naturally dark areas including bushland, waterways, marine and coastal areas’.

The new standard will consider the impacts of spill lighting on plants, wildlife and ecosystems by applying limits when previously there were none. To the best of our consultant’s knowledge this is the first normative obtrusive lighting standard in the world to consider the impact upon biota.

Hopefully this should give the Coalition some comfort that the numerous stakeholders on the committee (formed by government, industry and lighting experts) are taking the matter of protecting our unique night time habitats seriously.

Suffice to say I am advised that council’s consultant has taken every effort to minimise light spill beyond the target area and into the canopy and that they ‘strongly believe in protecting the night time environment and [their] approach is to use best practice design to minimise light pollution/spill whilst still achieving the objectives of the project.

The Powerful Owl Coalition thank Hornsby Council for engaging such a knowledgeable and forward thinking consultant, for caring about the fauna of the ‘bushland shire’ and for using these standards before publication.

We look forward to these standards being applied in Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai, particularly in developments in and adjacent to bushland such as Hornsby and Westleigh Parks and Norman Griffiths Oval.

LightTable

The owner of Lourdes Retirement Village at the end of Stanhope Road in Killara have been trying for several years to do a major redevelopment of the site. The Friends of Ku-ring-gai environment (FOKE) have been monitoring the process for some time and, as reported on their Facebook page, the local state MP, Jonathan O’Dea has spoken in parliament expressing many concerns.

Approval of a development like this would establish a very bad precedent of high rise buildings in a low density residential area on a ridge top intruding deep into a bushland setting.

Lourdes Village is on 5.25 ha on the edge of steep bushland in Garigal National Park. It currently has 108 independent units, an 83-bed aged care home and 49 serviced apartments. The owner, Stockland, is proposing to rebuild the entire complex and increase dwellings to 141 independent units, 110-bed aged care home. Sixty-three medium density townhouses would also be built on the southern and eastern part of the site. The nature of the village will be changed from a focus on senior’s accommodation to a more general residential complex. Other planned features include landscaping works, 1400 m2 of communal space, new internal roadways, a community centre, swimming pool, a pavilion for outdoor functions and 398 car parking spots.

This sounds all very good as a place to live but what about the bushfire risk of being on the edge of the bush and the impact buildings 22 m high with a high number of residents will have in this location surrounded by low density housing?

The proposal would result in the population of the site rising from about 275 to 546 people, but with only a small increase in the number of beds for the aged. There is only one residential road into the area that ends in a cul-de-sac.

The proposal could only proceed if Ku-ring-gai Council’s local environment plan is amended to accept the proponent’s intention to greatly increase the nature of the ‘village’, namely:

  • change the zoning from low-density to medium‑density residential (R2 to R3)
  • change the maximum height of the buildings from 9.5 m (the usual R3 limit) to 22 m to allow for up to six or seven-storey residential flat buildings
  • double the floor space ratio controls from 0.3 to 1 to 0.75 to 1 so that 389 car parking spaces can be incorporated

An illustrative master plan is shown below (source: Plus Architecture)

In recent years the Village has been rundown with units whose residents have left or died remaining vacant. This has contributed to the destruction of a sense of community for the remaining residents. The maintenance of some buildings and services has also been eroded since an earlier Stockland development attempt in 2018 was comprehensively rejected, including by Ku-ring-gai Council and the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Since the plan was submitted Stockland has sold all its retirement village developments to a private equity company, Levande which has taken over the development at Lourdes.

Local residents are strongly opposed as it is out of character with the surrounding low density housing. It will generate additional traffic onto a dead end street. Evacuation of residents in the case of a bushfire would be difficult.

Ku-ring-gai Council is opposed to this proposal as it has been to previous plans for reasons of bushfire risk and the inappropriate location for this type of development.

Next stage of the planning process

The proposal has been submitted as a Gateway proposal to the Department of Planning. It was assessed by the Sydney North Planning Panel and was accepted in July 2022. A period has been set for further submissions from the public (now closed) and some additional reports were requested by the panel. It is now before the Minister for Planning for final Gateway approval that could allow it to go to the development application stage.

Bushfire risks

One concerning aspect relates to the confirmation in the documents provided by the proponent that the bushfire protection standards will be met even though the risks of the site are rated in the highest category. They commissioned from Blackash Bushfire Consulting, a report that misrepresented RFS' current position as ‘endorsement’ of the rezoning. In fact, the RFS did not give approval but said analysis of the risks could be deferred to the next stage when more detail would be available about the building designs.

The assessment has to take into account the difficulties of evacuating the large number of aged residents. Statements have been made to the effect that the townhouses on the southern side will act as a shield against fire. Great protection for those residents living in these dwellings! The plans refer to shelters being provided within the site.

Ku-ring-gai Council has written a scathing submission to the planning panel. They are concerned a development like this will create the wrong precedent for this type of development to be accepted in a location like this. They commissioned an independent assessment of the bushfire risks.

The main conclusions made by council in their submission are:

  • The proposal fails to demonstrate protections to the proposed increased population on the site, including vulnerable elderly, in an environment of changing climate patterns and the expected increased incidence and severity of fire related events.
  • The exhibited bush fire report attached to the planning proposal contains no detail to substantiate the claims of safety to citizens.
  • The planning proposal fails to provide transparent exhibited bushfire related evidence to warrant the departure from key strategic considerations that are applied to all other sites across the LGA and NSW and that, if approved, would set precedents detrimental to key work related to bushfire safety.
  • Detailed design evidence pertaining to bushfire aspects cannot be deferred to the development application stage, it is required at this planning proposal master plan stage to determine if the increased dwellings and population on the site is warranted or not.

As Jonathan O’Dea said in the speech to state parliament:

I am seriously concerned that the proper planning and assessment process is at risk of being subverted for this site. Approval is not in the public interest, and I urge the new owners to rethink their plans. In any event, I believe the Minister for Planning should stop the planning proposal at Gateway.

Monday, 21 November 2022 21:39

Some good news for the EDO

The Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) has been struggling to cover demand for its services since 2013 when the Federal Government ended its funding. The states have also cut funding so they have had to depend increasingly on donations and pro bono services.

There was good news in the October Budget where this funding has been restored with $9.8 million over four years going to the EDO and Environmental Justice Australia plus a commitment for continuing funding of $2.6 million pa after that.

Monday, 21 November 2022 21:40

Let’s end native forest logging

NSW has two million hectares of public native forests along the coast. They are home to diverse wildlife and myriad forest ecosystems. Currently the primary use of these forests is timber production. Native forest logging takes place under regional forest agreements that are supposed to provide for ‘sustainable forest management’. Yet there are numerous examples of scarce hollow bearing trees and trees that provide koala habitat being felled. Forestry Corporation has been fined by the EPA multiple times for breaching forestry rules.

The loss of large areas of forest during the Black Summer bushfires has made the habitat provided by these forests all the more critical. Several species have been added to the threatened list since the fires, such as the koala, gang-gang cockatoo and greater glider.

These forests are also important for filtering water, slowing floodwater flows and storage of carbon. Forests can also provide opportunities for tourism and recreation both active and passive, such as bike riding, sightseeing and bushwalking.

Petition signed by over 21,000

In an attempt to end native forest logging a petition was launched by NSW Young Greens Indigenous Officer Takesa Frank and the Nature Conservation Council. It received more than 21,000 signatures which has forced parliament to respond.

The petition called for the NSW government to:

  • develop a plan to transition native forest logging to 100% sustainable plantation forestry by 2024
  • in the interim place a moratorium on logging until the regulatory framework is applied in line with the Natural Resources Commission recommendations
  • immediately place high conservation value forests into the National Park estate
  • immediately ban the use of native forest materials as biomass

The responsible Minister for Agriculture, the Hon Dugald Saunders, was dismissive. He claimed that the views of the 21,000 people who signed the petition are insignificant.

Some of the government’s arguments made in their response can be refuted, for example:

  1. Cutting down native forests is environmentally sustainable
    Response: Current practices are destroying biodiversity such as loss of koala habitat and increasing the number of threatened species.
  1. Only a minority of people care about the issue
    Response: A huge survey commissioned by the forestry industry in 2016 found that 70% of people in cities and 65% in regional areas are against native forest logging.
  1. Native forest logging is financially viable
    Response: This industry is barely making a profit.
  1. Logging native forests will help overcome the shortage of construction timber
    Response: The timber used by the construction industry is almost exclusively plantation pine. Meanwhile our native forests are chipped and shipped overseas for paper products.
  1. It is better to use local timbers than those from overseas
    Response: Illegally logged timber is already banned from being imported to Australia, and many imported products meet the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, a standard that NSW Forestry Corporation does not meet, because of its unacceptable impacts on biodiversity.
  1. Logging native forests employs 20,000 people
    Response: The number of jobs is a twentieth of the total the minister claims, at 1,000 jobs across the whole of NSW. There are 20,000 jobs in the sustainable plantation industry

Cost-benefit analysis of the industry In the South Coast

A study by Frontier Economics found that there is economic benefit from ceasing native forest harvesting in the Southern and Eden forest regions of NSW. The economic analysis measures the stream of costs and benefits over a 30 year period to 2051. The net result was a gain of $62 million if the state-owned native forests are no longer harvested.

The report took a simplified approach by restricting the analysis to compare the existing operations with the creation of a mountain bike park. This covered:

  • costs: loss of value of harvested wood and construction and maintenance of mountain bike recreation area
  • benefits: avoided costs of harvesting wood and processing, value of carbon credits, economic value of recreation

More complex factors were not included such as the value of wildlife saved and visitor tourism apart from mountain biking.

In conclusion, Frontier Economics found that Forestry Corporation NSW’s hardwood business made a normalised profit of $0.4 million in the financial year 2020, and an average normalised profit of $2.3 million over the five years to 2020. This is a very small profit and significantly smaller than the $64 million five year average over the same period earned by their softwood plantation business.

This poor return should be taken in context with the economic benefit from ceasing native forest harvesting and obtaining environmental and recreational services from the forest. This, along with the environmental concerns, has led Victoria and WA to decide to cease logging their native forests and to provide significant financial support to the industry to transition to a greater focus on plantation operations and other sectors of the economy. Now it’s time for NSW to also make the commitment.

Private land forestry

Currently, logging operations on private property in many areas have dual oversight from both the state government and local councils. Local councils have the ability to limit and control logging operations within their region. Just this month the National Party tried to revive the ‘koala wars’ by introducing a bill before the NSW parliament to remove this control. Fortunately several Liberal MPs threatened to vote against the bill and it has been withdrawn.

Monday, 21 November 2022 21:43

30 x 30 Biodiversity Agreement

There is a plethora of international agreements that relate to the protection of the Earth’s biodiversity. The overarching convention is the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) that was signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Examples of other agreements are the Ramsar Convention that aims to protect internationally significant wetlands and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). They don’t all work in isolation thank goodness! There is a Liaison Group of the Biodiversity-related Conventions.

The most recent major strategic plan to address the sad state of global biodiversity was the agreement to adopt the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets for 2010–20 period. The meeting was held in Aichi Prefecture in Japan; hence the name.

However, according to an assessment by the United Nations, none of the 2020 Aichi targets were met. At the moment, committing to the Aichi targets is voluntary and results from each party are self-reported to the CBD. Because these agreements are non-binding, the path to translating and implementing targets into national legislation is unclear.

One major reason for the lack of progress has been the continuation of subsidies and other incentives potentially harmful to biodiversity. An estimated $500 billion in government subsidies potentially cause environmental harm, according to the UN report.

Progress in establishing protected areas

One area of progress is the target relating to the establishment of protected areas. The objective was that by 2020, at least 17% of terrestrial and inland water, and 10% of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved. This target has been nearly met with 15% of land and 7% of oceans being protected by 2020.

What happens post 2020?

The countries that signed the CBD have their own COPs (Conference of the Parties) just like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The 15th meeting is a whole series of meetings with the first held in 2021 to develop a strategic plan post 2020. This meeting was hosted by China from the city of Kunming. Parties to the CBD adopted the Kunming Declaration to keep the political momentum of the negotiations delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Kunming Declaration recognised that progress has been made in the last decade, under the 2011–20 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity but expressed grave concern that such progress has been insufficient to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. It acknowledges that:

the unprecedented and interrelated crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, land degradation and desertification, ocean degradation, and pollution, and increasing risks to human health and food security, pose an existential threat to our society, our culture, our prosperity and our planet.

The declaration includes a long list of principles that are being developed into a Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework for actions. The framework is built around the recognition that urgent policy action is required to turn around the trend of biodiversity loss. The objective is that the trend should stabilise in the next 10 years (by 2030) and allow for the recovery of natural ecosystems in the following 20 years. The ultimate goal is to achieve the Convention’s vision of ‘living in harmony with nature by 2050’.

The 30 × 30 pledge

The Declaration notes a first step, the pledge by many countries to protect and conserve 30% of land and sea areas through well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures by 2030. This known as the 30 × 30 pledge.

More than 100 countries have pledged to adopt this goal including the USA. Joe Biden announced his commitment a week after he became president.

There are lots of other goals in the Kunming Declaration. The details of measures to achieve these goals will be hammered out at COP15 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Montréal, Canada, from 5–17 December 2022.

Australia’s response

The Minister for the Environment, Tanya Plibersek, in releasing the 2021 State of the Environment Report, announced that Australia will aim to exceed the 30 × 30 agreement. This will require additional 50 million hectares of landscape to be protected. This does not need all to be in national parks.

Under the government’s plan 20 places and 110 species will become the focus of conservation efforts selected based on several factors including their uniqueness and risk of extinction. The areas include the forests of Far North Queensland, Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory and Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

This announcement raises many questions. As the Chief Conservation Officer of the World Wildlife Fund points out, Australia has more than 1,900 listed threatened species. This plan picks 110 winners. It’s unclear how it will help our other ‘non priority’ threatened species such as our endangered greater glider.

Given the powers that the states have over management of protected areas and land clearing, how will the selection of the additional protected areas be determined? Can it be on a bioregional basis that ignores state boundaries. How will the ocean areas be defined – as sanctuary zones?

An article on the NPA NSW website explains the task at hand. The WWF commissioned protected areas spatial analyst Dr Martin Taylor to estimate what it would take to create a truly ecologically representative network of protected and conserved areas as part of the 30% target.

Protected land objectives required for NSW

In NSW, 7.6 million hectares of land occurs in the National Reserve System, equivalent to just 9.6% of the total land area. Moreover, more than 60% of ecosystems have less than 15% of their area protected.

Achieving significant progress towards protecting 30% of NSW would require not just a significant expansion of legal protection, but also revegetation and rewilding of millions of hectares of long-cleared lands in the sheep and wheat belt. This would require significant investment from state and federal governments as well as corporate and philanthropic support through natural capital markets. In some cases creation of new protected areas may be contested by some locals. It is also becoming less realistic as global heating and extreme weather events worsen.

Completing the transition out of native forest logging could secure an additional two million hectares of public native forests. Transfer of Crown lands, including large areas of travelling stock routes with high conservation values, to NPWS or Indigenous communities for conservation management, would need to be a major contributor to the 30% target. Supporting First Nations to voluntarily declare additional Indigenous Protected Areas could play a key role. Purchases of large pastoral stations in the Western Division could provide land justice for Indigenous communities through handback or co-management, and diversify rural economies as global heating increasingly makes some grazing and farming enterprises sub-economic.

The Biodiversity Conservation Trust’s capacity to support private landholders to establish conservation agreements would need to be greatly expanded – without relying upon perverse offsets – including through innovative partnerships that also deliver carbon outcomes with social, cultural and economic co-benefits.

Australian cities are good at growing – for decades their states have relied on it. The need to house more people is used to justify expansion out and up, but it is the rates, taxes and duties that flow from land transfers and construction that drive the endless development of Melbourne and Sydney in particular. Property development is the single largest contributor to Victorian and New South Wales government revenues.

For example, the City of Melbourne’s draft spatial plan proposes new suburbs to the west and north. It’s continuing on a course mapped out in the post-recession 1990s, when Australian governments focused on building on or digging up our great expanses. The plan neither questions the rationale for growth nor, apparently, the deeper effects of the pandemic.

The city council is understandably anxious to attract people back to the centre. The city plan presumes a return to Australia’s high population growth of the 2000s. Expectations of a renewed influx of students, workers and tourists from overseas are based more on hope, however, than reason.

The drivers of population growth are more uncertain and we can no longer depend on global mobility at pre-pandemic levels. Birth rates are falling across the developed world, online international education is improving, and research suggests pandemics will persist while cities encroach on the habitats of so many other species.

Meanwhile, the towers thrown up in the heady years of growth are half-empty and cracking, poorly ventilated, reliant on central air conditioning and not built for more extreme weather or low energy consumption. Melbourne and Sydney’s showcase regeneration projects at Docklands and Barangaroo are more dismal and deserted than ever.

Better needn’t mean bigger

Now is not the time for anyone to announce that their city will become “bigger and better”. Cities don’t have to get bigger to evolve, and sooner or later all will have to reckon with the concept of degrowth.

Australia must become less reliant on imports of skilled workers, students, tourists and materials. We can make better use of local resources and produce much more of what we need here.

Australian cities have very good bones. They have amazing cultural scenes. Their biomedical capabilities are among the world’s best. Our education sector remains eminently exportable online and via existing overseas campuses. The manufacturing sector still has a base to build on and provide many more of the products Australians need. And our renewable energy capacity is unlimited.

We can support our local hospitality and cultural venues better, and increase intercity and interstate patronage. We can invest in research and development and maintain wealth through innovation and production, rather than the eternal consumption of land.

Rethink what we build and why

Adapting to global environmental conditions means rethinking not just what and how we build, but why. Before designating land for yet more housing estates, for example, let’s consider that a million homes – 10% of Australia’s housing stock – were empty on census night last year. Nearly 600,000 were in Victoria and New South Wales.

Horizontal bar chart showing number of unoccupied homes in each state and territory on census night in 2016 and 2021
CC BY

Think tank Prosper Australia has for years demonstrated shocking numbers of vacant dwellings unavailable for rent. A hefty vacancy tax – much greater than the Victorian rate of 1% of property value, while NSW still has none for Australian owners – would lead to many more homes being released onto the market.

The property developers’ argument that we have to build more because that’s the only way to make housing more affordable has been repeatedly refuted by years of careful research.

Tens of thousands of upmarket dwellings have been added to the inner cities of Melbourne and Sydney over the past 20 years, with no reduction in prices across the board. While upmarket unit prices might drop a little when vacancy rates in that submarket increase, their developers are keenly alert to any dip in profits. At the slightest hint of surplus they just stop building.

 

If housing affordability is the object of urban expansion, let’s grasp that nettle: the only way to achieve it is to build affordable housing, it’s that simple. More than enough land is available within the urban growth boundaries for residential development.

Recent research from Prosper shows there are 84,000 undeveloped housing lots on nine Australian master-planned estates alone. This does not include the many inner-city regeneration projects already under way. Social housing in these areas should be the focus of urban planning before any more land is released.

What about ‘under-developed’ urban lands?

Further expansion of the inner cities of Melbourne and Sydney can only encroach onto low-lying, flood-prone industrial lands that were long ago deemed unsuitable for residential development. It would be folly, or very expensive, to build housing there.

These areas are and still can be used for manufacturing, however, and not just the new niche urban manufacturers that gentrifying councils so love to love. Older industries that are even now being displaced from Fishermans Bend in Melbourne and Blackwattle Bay in Sydney can easily coexist with artisanal bakeries and coffee roasters.

The imperative to promote sustainable local production is stronger than ever now that the pandemic and war have exposed the vulnerabilities of global supply lines. Our diminishing industrial lands really should be kept for industry, until such time as sea-level rise claims them as wetlands.

This is not an argument for decreasing construction activity: there is much work to be done retrofitting existing buildings. These need to be re-clad, better ventilated, opened to passive cooling and adapted to a warming climate.

The ongoing regeneration projects in Melbourne and Sydney need a lot more attention. Docklands, Darling Harbour and Barangaroo could become useful with some serious interventions. The emerging Fishermans Bend and Blackwattle Bay developments have already released more land than their planners know what to do with.

A forward-looking city plan would consolidate and advance what that city already has. That’s the way to build revenue streams that are environmentally, socially and politically sustainable.The Conversation

Kate Shaw, Honorary Senior Fellow in Urban Geography and Planning, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It's difficult to write a simple review of this book because it works at several different levels. But first of all, it's superb. It possibly has had more personal effect than any other I've read in the past few years.

Initially a British Columbia (BC) forest service employee, Suzanne Simard's observations didn’t tally with current forestry practises and this triggered her curiosity that led to her innovative research on forests and their trees

Ultimately its publication led to the coining of the term ‘wood wide web’ as she explored the way trees exchange nutrients and information via extensive fungal threads linking root systems, between mature parent ‘mother trees’ and their saplings but also linking totally unrelated species like birch and pines.

In this she soon came up against the entrenched government ‘free to grow’ policy which invoked the clearing of land of everything that might compete with commercial timber species. However her work, including measuring the movement of carbon and nitrogen isotopes, clearly showed this is not only unnecessary and costly but often strongly deleterious. It strongly supported the conclusion that healthier more productive forests resulted from keeping natural plant and animal communities as intact as possible.

On another level this book is autobiographical, and written by someone who was raised as the child of a forestry family in the Monashee Mountains of BC (between Kamloops and Banff) who grew up close to wild, forested country and absorbed much in the ways of people and animals in her home territory. One can very much read and enjoy this well written book at that level, and feel for all her conflicts, overcoming fear of public speaking, clashes with institutional practise and established scientific beliefs, family tragedies, and her own battle with cancer.

But there's yet another level too: much of the outcome of her research accords with long held beliefs by First Nations people that forests are a living, interactive, whole systems that communicate beneath the soil in mutually supportive ways. Such beliefs submitted for publication of course would not be accepted by any scientific journal, however her meticulous and patient supportive work most definitely has been, many, many times – she's now Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of BC.

And how does all this translate to our local forests? Do blue gums liaise with and feed and support their babies? Angophoras and turpentines often grow side by side, even touching one another, so do they also fungi-talk to each other through their roots? And what is the story now with ‘free to grow’ style clear felling? When we first set up home in Perth in the 1970s, WA's karri forests were managed on a ‘mother tree’ style basis (though I don’t remember if they used that term) leaving the biggest, healthiest trees intact to propagate for the future.

Author: Suzanne Simard
Allen Lane (Penguin) paperback, 348pp
Reviewed by John Martyn

Welcome to the annual report on the 44th year of operation of STEP Inc. Our lives have, in theory, returned to normal during 2022 apart from the lingering effects of the COVID virus. One disruptor has been the persistent rain with 2022 achieving the record of being the wettest year in Sydney since records began. The effects on our bushland will be apparent in years to come.

The political landscape has brightened considerably at the federal level. We await the implementation of new environment policies in relation to biodiversity that the 2021 State of the Environment Report revealed to be very poor. We hope for changes at the state level following the election due in March 2023.

Looking back over 2022 I am surprised by how busy this year has been with the resumption of most activities for members and plenty of demand for submissions and meetings.

Activities

Talks: After several attempts were stymied by COVID we finally managed to arrange a talk by Shane Fitzsimmons, Commissioner of Resilience. Ironically this took place in February just before the severe flooding events on the north coast. He gave a vivid description of the behind the scenes management of the Black Summer fires, particularly the stress placed on the emergency personnel.

Four other talks were held on the role of fungi in ecosystem health and the need to include fungi in bushland restoration programs, banksia regrowth after fire, threatened plant translocation and taxonomy.

Walks: We scheduled eight walks that featured local plants and indigenous knowledge. Unfortunately, two had to be cancelled because of bad weather. We thank our volunteer leaders, David Roberts, John Martyn, Greg Taylor, Helen Logie and Fran Rein who shared their local knowledge and Beverley Gwatkin who has organised these walks.

Publications: We are still offering a year’s free membership to anyone who buys a book or map. Sales of our maps is still strong and there is a steady demand for our books.

The supply of Middle Harbour North maps has now run out. We plan to complete a reprint early in 2023.

Committee

The STEP committee has, as always, been a great group of people to work with. We owe a huge thank you for all their efforts.

We thank Jim Wells for keeping track of our finances and compiling monthly finance reports. John Burke and Trish Lynch continue to keep Twitter and Facebook up to date and find lots of interesting items to add on a regular basis.

There have been several issues to review this year, often this is in association with other groups. The contribution of all committee members has been valuable. As always life would be easier if we could get more members on the committee!

Accounts

The net cash balance at the end of the financial year has increased compared to last year because last year’s fee holiday reduced our revenue.

The Environment Protection Fund (EPF) balance is on hold in case a major issue arises. We need to maintain this separate fund that is part of our deductible donation status. The Fund’s purpose is to support our environmental objectives. We received a total of $530 in donations in the past financial year.

Our general fund can be used to support educational projects as well as the EPF. We are keen to support more environmental projects so please contact us if you have any ideas.

Again we thank Allan Donald, Chartered Accountant for his completion of the audit on a pro bono basis.

Newsletter

We are continuing to publish five issues of the newsletter, STEP Matters, each year with most members receiving a pdf version via email. Links to individual topics are also included in the email and are on our website so anyone can pick out particular articles of interest. These articles also have links to previous articles on related topics.

While the newsletter concentrates on local issues and events we also cover broader national environmental issues that affect us all. We aim to be educational but not too technical. I hope they are of interest, but feedback is welcome. Also, contributions from members about local events and developments can be published in the newsletter or on Facebook.

Education grants

We did not receive any applications for the John Martyn Research Grant for 2022 and hope there will be more to consider in the future. This grant supports student research in an area relating to the conservation of bushland. In the end we awarded a grant to one of the applicants from a previous year to continue her work at the University of NSW on threatened species conservation through the use of translocation focussing on Hibbertia spanantha.

For many years STEP has been donating a prize in the Young Scientist Awards run by the NSW Science Teachers Association. The selection of a winning project out of a wide range of ecological issues is an interesting exercise. This year’s award went to a project on the use of organic methods to reduce heavy metals in waterways.

Advocacy

The major issues we have been working on are synthetic turf as part of the Natural Turf Alliance and mountain bike track plans and illegal activity. We are still waiting for the environmental review for the synthetic turf development at Norman Griffiths Oval. Major submissions were made on the Hornsby Quarry and Westleigh Park developments, Ku-ring-gai Urban Forest Strategy and NPWS cycling strategy. The Mirvac development at West Pennant Hills continues to need scrutiny and submissions.

Conclusion

A community group like STEP works best with many lines of communication. We enjoy a good relationship with other community groups and local council staff. Information sharing is an important part of our work. To that end we appreciate feedback from our members and reports on local issues that we may not be aware of. It is becoming harder to keep track of local developments as the local newspapers have shrunk considerably.

Monday, 21 November 2022 22:03

Young Scientist Awards 2022

STEP has given a prize for environmental projects in the Science Teachers Association of NSW Young Scientists Awards now for 21 years, in the form of money plus our book publications. This year’s award ceremony was in the Great Hall of UTS on Broadway. The ceremonies involve prize awards punctuated by light and humorous keynote addresses on aspects of science, its philosophy and education.

This year there were 127 prizes awarded in diverse aspects of STEM subjects, sponsored by the Science Teachers Association plus many donors including AARNET, Rowe, Australian Water and several scientific organisations. Many students, including STEP’s choice, received several awards. Ages ranged from K2 to year 12; and it’s heartening to see ‘tiny tots’ bouncing up onto the stage for their prizes and knowing that interest, enthusiasm and education start very young if properly stimulated and managed.

STEP chooses from a suite of environmental projects, usually five to eight in number, pre-selected by STANSW chief co-ordinator Anjali Rao. Past topics have ranged from those directly related to bushland to broad based studies on topics such as microplastics. A major STEP winner from four years ago lived on a cattle farm and studied the control of noxious pasture weeds.

This year’s winner Lily Rafail in Year 8 from Presbyterian Ladies College investigated the use of the semiaquatic plant Bacopa monnieri, plus avocado skins, in removing heavy metal pollutants from natural waterways. Her submission won four prizes from other donors including an award for science communication.

Ku-ring-gai Council has a new way for you to check whether a permit has been granted for trees being removed in your neighbourhood. If you go to www.krg.nsw.gov.au/webmap you can look up this information using the address of the property. If you have any concerns that a tree is being illegally removed, please call 9424 0000.

In our submissions STEP has often highlighted the issue of the disruption to animal behaviour from artificial light spill. Examples are the Canoon Road netball complex and the proposed skyscraper at Eden Gardens (still to be approved). This article explaining the issue was published in The Conversation on 28 July 2022.

As the Moon rises on a warm evening in early summer, thousands of baby turtles emerge and begin their precarious journey towards the ocean, while millions of moths and fireflies take to the air to begin the complex process of finding a mate.

These nocturnal behaviours, and many others like it, evolved to take advantage of the darkness of night. Yet today, they are under a increasing threat from the presence of artificial lighting.

At its core, artificial light at night (such as from street lights) masks natural light cycles. Its presence blurs the transition from day to night and can dampen the natural cycle of the Moon. Increasingly, we are realising this has dramatic physiological and behavioural consequences, including altering hormones associated with day-night cycles of some species and their seasonal reproduction, and changing the timing of daily activities such as sleeping, foraging or mating.

The increasing intensity and spread of artificial light at night (estimates suggest 2-6% per year) makes it one of the fastest-growing global pollutants. Its presence has been linked to changes in the structure of animal communities and declines in biodiversity.

How animals are affected by artificial lighting

Light at night can both attract and repel. Animals living alongside urban environments are often attracted to artificial lights. Turtles can turn away from the safety of the oceans and head inland, where they may be run over by a vehicle or drown in a swimming pool. Thousands of moths and other invertebrates become trapped and disoriented around urban lights until they drop to the ground or die without ever finding a mate. Female fireflies produce bioluminescent signals to attract a mate, but this light can’t compete with street lighting, so they too may fail to reproduce.

Each year it is estimated millions of birds are harmed or killed because they are trapped in the beams of bright urban lights. They are disoriented and slam into brightly lit structures, or are drawn away from their natural migration pathways into urban environments with limited resources and food, and more predators.

Other animals, such as bats and small mammals, shy away from lights or may avoid them altogether. This effectively reduces the habitats and resources available for them to live and reproduce. For these species, street lighting is a form of habitat destruction, where a light rather than a road (or perhaps both) cuts through the darkness required for their natural habitat. Unlike humans, who can return to their home and block out the lights, wildlife may have no option but to leave.

For some species, light at night does provide some benefits. Species that are typically only active during the day can extend their foraging time. Nocturnal spiders and geckos frequent areas around lights because they can feast on the multitude of insects they attract. However, while these species may gain on the surface, this doesn’t mean there are no hidden costs. Research with insects and spiders suggests exposure to light at night can affect immune function and health and alter their growth, development and number of offspring.

How can we fix this?

There are some real-world examples of effective mitigation strategies. In Florida, many urban beaches use amber-coloured lights (which are less attractive to turtles) and turn off street lights during the turtle nesting season. On Philip Island, Victoria, home to more than a million short-tailed shearwaters, many new street lights are also amber and are turned off along known migration pathways during the fledging period to reduce deaths.

In New York, the Tribute in Light (which consists of 88 vertical searchlights that can be seen nearly 100km away) is turned off for 20-minute periods to allow disoriented birds (and bats) to escape and to reduce the attraction of the structure to migrating animals.

In all cases, these strategies have reduced the ecological impact of night lighting and saved the lives of countless animals.

However, while these targeted measures are effective, they do not solve what might be yet another global biodiversity crisis. Many countries have outdoor lighting standards, and several independent guidelines have been written but these are not always enforceable and often open to interpretation.

As an individual there are things you can do to help, such as:

  • default to darkness: only light areas for a specific purpose

  • embrace technology: use sensors and dimmers to manage lighting frequency and intensity

  • location, location, location: keep lights close to the ground, shield at the rear, and direct light below the horizontal

  • respect the spectrum: choose low-intensity lights that limit the blue, violet and ultraviolet wavelengths. Wildlife is less sensitive to red, orange and amber light

  • all that glitters: choose non-reflective finishes for your home. This reduces the scattered light that contributes to sky glow

In one sense, light pollution is relatively easy to fix – we can simply not turn on the lights and allow the night to be illuminated naturally by moonlight.

Logistically, this is mostly not feasible as lights are deployed for the benefit of humans who are often reluctant to give them up. However, while artificial light allows humans to exploit the night for work, leisure and play, in doing so we catastrophically change the environment for many other species.

In the absence of turning off the lights, there are other management approaches we can take to mitigate their impact. We can limit their number; reduce their intensity and the time they are on; and, potentially change their colour. Animal species differ in their sensitivity to different colours of light and research suggests some colours (ambers and reds) may be less harmful than the blue-rich white lights becoming commonplace around the world.The Conversation

Therésa Jones, Associate Professor in Evolution and Behaviour, The University of Melbourne and Kathryn McNamara, Post-doctoral research associate, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Near the end of Quarter Sessions Road in Westleigh there is a large area of land (34 ha) that was owned by Sydney Water until it was bought by Hornsby Council in 2016. This site has had various uses over the years; a training site for the RFS and a dumping ground for asbestos. There is a large area of bushland near the Sydney Water reservoir. Most of the land not been managed for many years.

As there was no management of the bushland, local mountain bike riders have built a huge network of trails and claimed the area as their own, calling it the H2O facility. Many of these trails go through a large area of high quality critically endangered Sydney Turpentine Ironbark Forest (STIF) and endangered Duffys Forest. The future survival of these forest areas is at risk from the bikes riding over tree roots, soil compaction and weed invasion. The activity also disturbs the wildlife especially as night riding is occurring. The other areas of bush are also valuable and contain threatened plants and orchids.

Hornsby Council drew up a master plan for the site. Submissions were made in June 2021. The plan proposed that most of the network of bike trails in the endangered forest areas be closed and rehabilitated. The trails would be relocated to the edges and away from high value biodiversity. The trails in the other bush areas would remain and be upgraded.

So what has happened since? There have been various forms of consultation with local residents, bikers and conservation groups. Basically the mountain bikers are very unhappy about losing the trails in the forest and have been actively lobbying the council. STEP and all the local conservation groups want the trails removed from the endangered forests.

In fact, council’s development of the Westleigh Park site has to heed the conservation advice for STIF issued by the Australian Government in response to its listing as critically endangered under the EPBC Act. This states that the priority recovery and threat abatement actions required for this ecological community are:

  • to prevent further clearing or fragmentation of the ecological community
  • to manage weeds within existing remnants
  • to identify and fence important remnants to minimise impacts from grazing and recreational activities
  • to rehabilitate degraded but recoverable remnants so that they meet the condition criteria for the ecological community

A series of workshops was held in June with representatives of the mountain bikers, environment groups and local residents. The plan was to resolve the impasse and come to a consensus on where the trails should go. Council could then proceed with the next stage of the development process in getting detailed environmental information and approvals. This was a very time consuming process (13 hours in total) that basically came to no decision. Naturally the conservation groups and the local residents wanted the illegal trails removed. The bikers argued that the trails were of great benefit for teaching young riders new skills and a love of the bush in the lovely shady trails. The forest in the STIF area in particular is mostly level and ideal for learner riders.

So the ball is back in the court of Hornsby Council where it should be. No news has been heard from council. H2O is still in operation so the damage continues and no action is being taken to close the endangered forest areas and start their rehabilitation. This laissez faire attitude is reprehensible.

We are all aware of trees being chopped down and poisoned in order to facilitate development (subdivision) or views. The grind of chain saws and mulching machines can be heard every week. How do we know if the tree removal is legal? Ku-ring-gai Council has a tree preservation order but only occasionally is there publicity about this regulation being breached and a paltry fine being issued.

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 19 April, Ku-ring-gai’s tree canopy cover declined by 2.4% over the 7 years 2013 to 2020. By contrast the draft Urban Forest Strategy aims to increase cover in residential areas from 35.6 to 40% over the next 10 years. Much of the reduction has come from building new houses that occupy most of the block and leave no room for trees. The complying development code that is controlled by the state government overrides many of the council provisions aimed at keeping tree canopy. This should be an issue at the state election next March.

At the last meeting council passed a resolution that we hope will help make a difference. The aim is:

…to enhance current measures for pursuing investigations and preventing illegal tree/vegetation removal through community education.

The decisions made are:

  • to write to the Minister for Planning and Environment to lobby for an increase in penalties
  • to mandate the display of tree application permits at the front of the subject property whilst works are being undertaken
  • to increase community education regarding illegal tree work, council’s online approval portal and the significance of the visibility of tree application permits
  • to increase contractor education regarding council’s Tree and Vegetation Preservation Development Control Plan
  • to continue to seek legal advice to issue penalty infringement notices for multiple tree breaches on one site

Fungi are poorly known. Of the estimated 3 to 8 million species in existence, only about 120,000 species ever have been named and described. This accounts for only 2 to 5% of the estimated total.

The Australian biota is unique, with many of our plants and animals being found nowhere else. It is very likely that Australian fungi are also unique. However, Australian fungi are often assigned names of Northern Hemisphere species that look similar. This means that Australian fungi may be even more poorly known.

There are a number of reasons that fungi are under-described. First, fungi spend most of their lives existing as mycelial networks, hidden underground. Second, when we do see fungi, they are the reproductive fruiting bodies (mushrooms, toadstools etc). These are mostly small and ephemeral. And, these fruiting bodies often do not have many consistent, distinguishing characteristics.

Despite our lack of knowledge of fungal diversity, we do know that they perform essential roles in ecosystems. They have diverse roles, including as pathogens (causing disease to plants or animals), saprotrophs (breaking down dead animal and plant material) and mutualists (supporting the growth of plants). Almost all land plants form beneficial associations with fungi, as mycorrhizae (fungus root), so conservation of plant communities must also include conservation of their fungal partners.

There are two ways to approach fungal identification. Traditionally, people have used culturing of fungi and surveys of above-ground fruiting bodies. More recently, DNA-based methods have been used to directly survey fungal species in soil. However, a compromise approach combines field surveys with DNA-barcoding. This allows us to identify fungal fruiting bodies, initially to the genus level, and potentially the species level if the species has previously been formally described and then characterised using DNA. We have used this combination approach to identify club and coral fungi in the Lane Cove Valley.

We chose to investigate the club and coral fungi because they exhibit all the characteristics that contribute to fungi being poorly described. The fruiting bodies are small and have few distinguishing characteristics. They are often cryptic, and from our initial observations, seemed to include a range of undescribed species.

To plan our field work, we used John Martyn’s STEP maps to identify track segments of 1 to 2 km which we could survey in a single trip (fungal surveys move very slowly!). Over 2020–22, we have walked every track on the STEP maps multiple times during our fungal explorations of the Lane Cove Valley. We collected some thousands of specimens under our scientific permit issued by the Department of Planning, Industries and Environment. We are now in the process of extracting DNA to sequence and characterise local species.

Our study is far from complete, but we can already report some general observations. Many species in the Lane Cove Valley are undescribed, with up to 30 to 40% of specimens being new species. Club and coral fungi are not distributed evenly through the valley. These types of fungi are mainly found along creek lines, particularly those dominated by coachwood. Our observations suggest that the sides of creeks where sewer lines have been laid host lower fungal diversity and abundance than their corresponding sewer-free creek-sides. Creeks with no sewer lines are often rich in fungal species.

We have also noticed that areas dominated by weedy vegetation have different fungal communities. These areas have generally depauperate communities, with fewer fungal species and fewer fruiting bodies. When areas of weedy bushland are regenerated, this does not appear to be accompanied by recovery of the fungal diversity that is found in more pristine areas. We can often identify regenerated areas through their altered fungal species types and abundance, and refer to the fungi in these areas as fungal ‘weeds’.

In less disturbed areas of bushland, we have documented significant fungal hotspots. In these areas, there is elevated fungal diversity and abundance. There are three outstanding locations for fungal diversity in the Upper Lane Cove Valley. These are Rofe Park/Sheldon Forest, Browns Field, and Coups Creek. All these areas are sheltered valleys that face southwest, and all are likely to be nutrient rich. We think that these locations contain important remnant populations of native fungi that are worthy of conservation, similar to Lane Cove Bushland Park, a reserve dedicated to the conservation of endangered waxcap fungi. Notably, these areas are not within the boundaries of the national park.

Although our results are still preliminary, we can already see some potential implications for conservation and environmental protection. If bush regeneration schemes are not accompanied by natural fungal regeneration, we might need to use inoculum from known fungal hotspots to reintroduce the fungi that are missing from regenerated areas. Reintroduction of native fungi into these plant communities should improve their stability and resilience. Understanding the role of soil fungal diversity in regeneration and restoration of natural bushland areas could be key to the long-term success of conservation and preservation efforts.

Finally, there are clearly many new species of fungi in our region. The formal process of naming these will take many years, but is important for understanding and monitoring fungal ecology. During our surveys, there are some fungi that we have only ever seen once or twice. Since we have also seen multiple examples of extremely rare species of plants and animals during these trips, we think that these fungi are also rare and possibly endangered. There is certainly much more to be done to understand the fungi and their roles in ecosystems.

References and further reading

D.L. Hawksworth and R. Lücking (2017) Fungal diversity revisited: 2.2 to 3.8 million species. Microbiology Spectrum 5(4)

R. Kearney and E. Kearney (2015) Conservation of fungi in Lane Cove Bushland Park. Australian Network for Plant Conservation 24

On 28 June 2022 Vanessa McPherson and Prof Michael Gillings gave STEP a fascinating talk about fungi and their important contribution to ecosystem. They have kindy provided a summary of the talk. They work with the School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University. (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

The first State of the Environment (SoE) report for Australia was produced in 1996 by a team led by Prof Ian Lowe. The latest report was released on 19 July after being sat on by the Morrison government since last December. The lead author this time is Prof Emma Johnson. Both these leading ecologists have presented a lecture to STEP members, Ian Lowe in 2012 and Emma in 2014.

These are important documents. Each state may produce a similar environment report but state boundaries tend to hide data of cumulative effects.

The 2021 report highlights the most important areas where action is urgent. As the new Minister for the Environment and Water, Tania Plibersek stated this ‘shocking report’ told ‘a story of crisis and decline in Australia’s environment, and of a decade of government inaction and wilful ignorance.’ She promised: ‘I won’t be putting my head in the sand … the environment is back on the priority list’.

Some major points to note

More threatened species have been listed and existing populations are becoming more threatened. The number of plant and animal species listed as threatened in June 2021 was 1,918, up from 1,774 in 2016. The previous issue of STEP Matters has a detailed summary of the state of Australia’s biodiversity.

Land clearing – the EPBC Act is totally ineffective. 7.7 million hectares of potential habitat for terrestrial threatened species was cleared between 2000 and 2017 (for context, Tasmania is 6.8 million hectares). Much of the clearing occurred in small increments. Over 93% of land clearing was not referred to the Australian government for assessment, meaning the loss was not scrutinised under the EPBC Act. This highlights cumulative impacts, one of the factors that the Samuel Review called for inclusion in development assessments.

Climate change is exacerbating pressures on every Australian ecosystem. Many Australian ecosystems have evolved to rebound from extreme ‘natural’ events such as bushfires. But the frequency, intensity, and compounding nature of recent events are greater than they’ve experienced throughout their recent evolutionary history. Climate change is compounding ongoing and past stresses from human impact so we have to expect more species extinctions over the next decades.

Inland water and marine environments our nearshore reefs are in overall poor condition due to poor water quality, invasive species and marine heatwaves. We are all aware of the harm being done to the Great Barrier Reef by bleaching events. Inland water systems, including in the Murray Darling Basin, are under increasing pressure. By the time the Morrison Government left office, they had only delivered two of the promised 450 GL of environmental water and they had no plan to find the extra 448 GL by 2024, when it’s due.

Urban expansion – we’re reducing the quantity and quality of native habitat outside protected areas through, for instance, urban expansion on land and over-harvesting in the sea. However there is no acknowledgement of the need to limit population growth.

Some reasons for optimism

Indigenous knowledge – traditional fire management is being recognised as vital knowledge by land management organisations and government but progress and funding are slow. Work must still be done to empower Indigenous communities and enable Indigenous knowledge systems to improve environmental and social outcomes.

Biodiversity restoration –there are many programs for improving our biodiversity but Australia is increasingly relying on costly ways to conserve biodiversity. This includes restoration of habitat, reintroducing threatened species, translocation (moving a species from a threatened habitat to a safer one), and ex situ conservation (protecting species in a zoo, botanical garden or by preserving genetic material). On the positive side individuals, non-government organisations and businesses are increasingly 7 purchasing and managing significant tracts of land for conservation.

What the new government is doing – in the speech to the National Press Club when she released the SoE report, Environment and Water Minister, Tania Plibersek stated that the update of the EPBC Act is a priority. The response to the Samuel Review will be completed by the end of this year and the government will aim to develop new legislation for 2023. They have promised a new Environmental Protection Agency with power to enforce the legislation.

The Government will set a national goal of protecting 30% of our land and 30% of our oceans by 2030. Only 16% (13 of 84) of Australia’s nationally listed threatened ecological communities meet a 30% minimum protection standard in the national reserve system.

The goal for reduction in greenhouse gas emissions has already been approved. There will also be a review of the carbon offset market that has been roundly criticised – see STEP Matters Issue 215. Conversely coal and gas projects are still being approved.

Decisions need to be built on good data. The government has promised to restore funding for the Environment Department that was cut by 40% by the Morrison government.

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