it pays to keep natives on site
Leaving natural or native vegetation creates
windbreaks and shelter belts without having to wait years for planted
trees and shrubs to grow.
Natural vegetation also provides habitat for a wide range of native
plants and a variety of birds and other animals that eat large numbers
of insects and rodents. In this way maintaining biodiversity can
play a vital role in pest management on a farm without the need
for costly chemicals.
Natural vegetation on Kooragang City Farm includes:
mangroves, saltmarsh and freshwater wetland plants, lowland floodplain
rainforest and other trees and shrubs. All these help to complete
wildlife corridors elsewhere on Kooragang Wetlands and ensure natural
areas on City Farm are large enough to be viable habitat for the
various species of bird, frog, reptile and mammal that once flourished
in this area.
Areas of well-managed natural vegetation not only increase the
individual numbers of existing resident native species but may further
increase biodiversity by attracting species such as bower bird and
swamp wallaby that are no longer found on the site. (News
Flash: The first Swamp Wallaby seen on Ash Island for more
than 150 years was sighted on City Farm on June 22, 2005! We await
photographic confirmation of the sighting.)
To compliment the existing natural vegetation City Farm has added
over ten thousand native trees and shrubs to link and enhance the
habitat potential of the farm.
Kooragang City Farm strives to farm in harmony with all natural
ecosystems, especially the wetlands which predominate on this site.
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Wetland vegetation provides
habitat for a host of farm helpers. |
Wetlands and other native
vegetation adjacent to forestry lanes in the south-west corner
of City Farm. |
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