Citizens Wildlife
Corridors

As a not-for-profit organisation and a registered charity, Citizens Wildlife Corridors encourages landholders on the Northern Tablelands of NSW and elsewhere, to accommodate wildlife and use sustainable land use practices. CWC encourages landholders to build multipurpose wildlife corridors to link to existing native bushland remnants and also to use for windbreaks to protect pastures and stock during our extreme weather conditions on the over cleared Northern Tablelands.

• Providing hard pressed native birds and animals with habitat, that is, food, shelter and breeding places on private properties across New England Tablelands and elsewhere;
• Protecting remaining areas of native bushland;
• Linking up larger areas of isolated native habitat with a patchwork of private wildlife areas;
• Even the busiest person can be part of the scheme, your time is not required unless you wish it;
• Plotting members properties onto maps to observe where linkages may be possible, is the basic requirement.

All Australian wildlife is protected by law except for about 2% which may be culled with permission, but Australian wildlife habitat is only protected in less than 6% of the whole of Australia in National Parks.

Wildlife is threatened because it has fewer and fewer places to live, and fewer and fewer Australian plants to feed it. It is now up to private citizens to provide the habitat for our wildlife.

CWC traces member's properties onto maps, and with National Parks, State Forests, Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves and roadside bush, it is then possible to see where linkages could occur.

Privately owned land will remain private and under the owner's personal supervision and control at all times. A patchwork pattern is emerging across the New England Tablelands and further afield.

CWC hopes to link up large isolated native areas such as Mt. Duval and local Nature Reserves such as Yinna, with the gorge country, Wild Rivers National Park, through private land across New England tablelands to the woodlands to the west and elsewhere.

Bird preservation will be aimed at first because the patchwork idea is most suitable for this; most birds being able to fly between the patches.

An ideal habitat is a three tier environment to provide feeding, shelter and breeding places for birds and mammals such as possums, sugar gliders and reptiles such as lizards.

• Upper Tier: trees such as Eucalyptus (gum trees), Casuarinas (river oaks) and Angophoras (apple box) form a tall canopy.
• Understory Tier: is composed of dense, even prickly, smaller trees such as Acacias (wattles), Callitris (native cypress), Banksias, Leptospermums (tea trees) and Melaleucas (paper barks) and others.
• Shrub Layer: low shrubs such as Grevilleas (spider flowers), Correas, Callistemons (bottle brushes) and many others form the lowest tier, in an ideal environment.
• Open grassy areas are needed for the grass seed eating birds. Water is necessary in creeks and dams. Small islands in dams with a tree and/or dense shrubs, provide protection for birds from predators.

Local Australian native plants that have been hardened off for New England conditions, can be obtained from the Armidale Tree Group Nursery and native nurseries in Guyra, Uralla, Kentucky and Walcha.

Advice on growing, planting, planning and fencing of native trees and plants can be had from:
Armidale Tree Group Nursery: ph. (02) 6771 1620

Other people willing to give advice on this project are Warren Sheather and Maria Hitchcock from the Armidale Branch of the Australian Plants Society. Ecologists at the University of New England can provide advice on birds and mammals.

For further information, or to plot your native areas on to maps, contact:
Kath Wray: ph. (02) 6772 8878

Write to CWC, 7 Merinda Place, Armidale, NSW, 2350, for an appointment.

Yearly subscription is $10 to cover costs of maps, visits and two informative newsletters per year.

* Maps
The 60 topographic CWC Map Display highlighting members' properties, National Parks, State Forests and Travelling Stock Routes and Reserves can be viewed at Botany Division of the University of New England, 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday.

Contact: Kath Wray: ph. (02) 6772 8878.

      Updates

CWC began in 1991. Just during the last 10 years 70 CWC Members have, with help from subsidies from Australian Government Grants to the CWC organisation for their Members:

• planted over 91,000 local indigenous shrubs and trees;
• protected (with fencing) from stock and erosion over 20 kilometres of streams and planted their riparian (streamside) areas to improve water quality;
• protected (fenced) from stock damage 230 hectares of native bushland remnants for wildlife;
• built 17 kilometres X 30 metres wide, wildlife corridors to create links to native bushland remnants;
• published a 44 page monitoring report, with ISBN, as well as an abridged edition for landholders, with additional help from CWC members' donations.

The CWC Committee wishes to congratulate all these members for their wonderful achievements and hard work in achieving these results.

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