Project: Parramatta River Catchment Fauna Habitat & Biolinks Project
Client: The Parramatta River Catchment Group (PRCG)
2014-15
The PRCG is a regional organisation of local councils, state agencies and community representatives whose aim is to work together to improve the health of the Parramatta River catchment. A steering committee supervised this project and included representatives from Ashfield, Auburn, Blacktown, Canada Bay, Hunters Hill, Ryde, Parramatta and Strathfield Councils, Sydney Olympic Park Authority, and BirdLife Australia.
This study underpins the native habitat recovery in the Parramatta River catchment project, which aims to expand, restore and manage the extent of native habitats in the fragmented landscapes of the Parramatta River catchment. This collaborative project has been funded through a NSW Environmental Trust grant, and involves a series of distinct stages including research, assessment and delivery of on-ground works.
PART 1
· The collation of existing data (including each Council’s fauna studies, HNCMA’s Rapid Fauna Habitat Assessment, HNCMA’s Draft Native Vegetation of the SMCMA Area report, Sydney Olympic Park Authority’s fauna studies, BirdLife Australia’s bird data, OEH’s Linking Landscapes Through Local Action project and the Atlas of NSW Wildlife)
· Supplementary surveys for areas with poor or no data available
PART 2
· A review of literature relating to the development of urban biodiversity corridors
· Ranking fauna habitat sites based on their fauna species richness
· Identifying key existing and potential vegetation corridors linking high priority sites across the landscape
· The identification of high value sites, potential and existing biodiversity corridors, and recommendations for future works including appropriate revegetation species to improve the overall quality of identified and potential fauna corridors
