Page 415 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 2018
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For some background, the 2003 bushfires burnt almost all of the vegetation in the lower Cotter catchment, including 4,000 hectares of commercial pine plantation. Heavy rains after the fires eroded the forestry management trails and fragile soils and deposited large loads of sediment into the streams feeding the Cotter reservoir. Following the devastating fires, and in the context of a changing climate, concerns about the reliability of Canberra’s future water supply resulted in the ACT government’s decision to enlarge the capacity of the Cotter reservoir from four gigalitres to 79 gigalitres, or nearly 20 times its original size. That increased Canberra’s water storage capacity by 35 per cent. In 2013 the new Cotter Dam wall was completed, and drawing water again from the Cotter Dam has led to a renewed focus on the reliability of water resources and the importance of a stable and healthy surrounding catchment.
The ACT government also made the decision that commercial pine plantations were no longer an appropriate land use for the lower Cotter catchment and that the remaining plantations would be phased out and the catchment returned to native vegetation. With the support of over 15,000 community volunteers, more than 306,000 trees and shrubs have been planted over 500 hectares. The plantings have been highly successful and survival rates are nearly 80 per cent.
The lower Cotter catchment is made up of more than 6,000 hectares of recovering landscape upstream of the Cotter Dam wall. Ongoing revegetation and stabilisation of the catchment with native plants is a priority to ensure the protection of water quality. The government is committed to returning the lower Cotter to a stable and healthy catchment.
The soils of the lower Cotter catchment are highly erodible. Maintaining vegetation cover and limiting activities that can lead to increased erosion are important to maintaining good water quality. Ex-forestry trails have been identified as a major source of sediment, and over 100 kilometres have already been closed and rehabilitated. The plan proposes to keep the trail network under review, with only trails that are necessary for management purposes to be retained.
Although the lower Cotter catchment has a history of disturbance from human activity, including clearing for grazing, planting with pines, and severe fire damage, the area retains significant natural values. It provides important landscape-scale connections for wildlife movement, supports a number of threatened plant species and communities, and provides habitat for some declining woodland birds as well as native fish and invertebrates. To protect these natural values, it is important that we continue to focus on weed and pest animal control. Pine wildings remain a considerable management issue, and several methods are currently being trialled for the most effective method of control and replacement with native vegetation.
Ngunnawal people occupied and actively managed the landscape for more than 25,000 years prior to European settlement and still maintain a strong connection to country. The lower Cotter catchment has extensive evidence of Aboriginal occupation and of travel routes between the limestone plains and the mountains. The plan provides for the protection and interpretation of Aboriginal heritage, in collaboration
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