Page 3277 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 23 August 2017
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For generations now conservationists have sought to protect the place. Now it is a haven for wildlife and the community. Every week there are guided tours. Every day there are joggers, pram pushers, school and university students and cyclists enjoying their reconnection with nature. The partners involved work hard to balance the opportunities of visitation, recreation and conservation.
In addition to learning how to restore the woodlands, it is a place to inspire the community to care for our unique Australian wildlife. Volunteers with Friends of Mulligans Flat help in all aspects of sanctuary management from turtle patrol, helping eastern long-necked turtles pass the fox-proof fence, to weed control, citizen science and management planning.
I visited Mulligans Flat Woodland Sanctuary with my team in late June. Walking through the reserve after dark hearing about the ground-breaking work being done and the findings made was brilliant. The closeness of nature was remarkable. I spotted bettongs bouncing through the bush with living room lights on the horizon. This reserve is almost literally on Gungahlin’s doorstep.
But the Mulligans Flat and Goorooyarroo reserves are not stand-alone reserves. They are part of a Canberra Nature Park, a group of 30 nature reserves over Canberra that help maintain our natural environment throughout our built environment. It is a large part of what defines Canberra as the bush capital and it is something that we Canberrans value.
Having just gone through the submissions for the billboard inquiry, I was reminded how passionate Canberrans are about the way their city looks and feels and how our identity as the bush capital plays into this. It is integral to our sense of place and home in the territory. In every electorate, every town centre, you can see out to the mountain ranges, the national parks and the nature reserves.
This year’s ACT budget continues to address biodiversity and conservation in our local community. A further $2.5 million will be invested in tackling environmental issues and protecting nature reserves in the ACT; and $162,000 will be provided to the Woodlands and Wetlands Trust to work on the design of the Mulligans Flat ecotourism centre. The woodlands sanctuary at Mulligans Flat will be extended to create more than 1,200 hectares of predator-free woodland. Under the expansion, the woodland sanctuary’s fence line will be extended to the doorstep of the new Canberra suburb of Throsby.
But it is not enough to simply carve out the patches of land where we permit nature in our city. We have to protect and integrate our built and natural environments so the people living here can use and learn from nature without harming it. Since the release of the ACT nature conservation strategy in 2013 the government has made a significant impact on the territory landscape through restoration and rehabilitation.
Partnerships between the ACT government, the federal government, community groups and researchers have guided the process. Achievements include improvements
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