This is going on a bit. Main message: stop calling it
development, when it should really be called "suppression". We
should not talk about "developing" a wetland site but
"suppressing" a wetland site, not talk about developing a large
housing block but "suppressing" it, not talk about developing
farmland but suppressing natural ecologies. And legislation
should use this proper term for what is going on. (Unless anyone
can offer a better term than suppression).
Down here in Bayside (SE Melbourne) there is a very noticeable
decline in Silvereye numbers as compared with numbers in two
surveys published in the ABW in the 1980s. More recently there
is lots of anecdotal info. - and some quantitative support - for
a decline in Greenies - White-plumed Honeyeaters.
The latter seem to be victims of a gradual clearing of
understorey with declines correlated with increases in Noisy
Miners (don't blame them - blame the environmental
degradation). I suspect similar mechanisms are responsible for
the Silvereye decline.
Sadly some of this is due, I suspect, to two over-emphases as
nature lovers try to tell others what is best for ecosystems.
Firstly, more eucalypts are good. True but our City - I've
tried to tell them ! - insists on "themes" which tends to mean
all eucalypts on a nature strip or all exotics. So some parts
are dominated by noisy miners or wattlebirds and others by
indian mynahs etc. How about some gums, some wattles, some
melaleucas, some bursarias...
Secondly, it is TREES which should be protected. I think that
is great for landscape/amenity purposes to preserve the "Garden
State" image. But in planning schemes etc. it has come to mean
you can clear a block apart from a tree or two and create a
development (a better word would perhaps be a "suppression")
which leaves no understorey (and can then be planted up with a
few birch trees or even smaller exotics).
The understorey is undervalued and the ground layer is treated
as totally dispensable although it is that top centimetre or so
of soil which will have any indigenous vegetation that is left
and the grasses, logs, bark... which will be protecting the
skinks, frogs... Go down a few more centimetres and you will
get the cicadas which are growing for five or more years in the
soil.
Michael Norris
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