Woodland recognised as endangered

The existence of Umina Coastal Sandplain Woodland (UCSW) was only finally recognised by the NSW Scientific Committee as an "endangered ecological community" on December 6, 2002.

The woodland is recorded on coastal sands on the Woy Woy Peninsula from the local government area of Gosford.

The committee's report lists 75 species as those which characterise the UCSW.

The total species list of the community is considerably larger than that, according to the report, with many species present in only one or two sites or in very small quantity.

The report stated that the species composition of a site would be influenced by the size of the site, recent rainfall or drought condition and by its disturbance (including fire) history.

It also stated that at any one time, above ground individuals of some species may be absent, but the species may be represented below ground in the soil seed banks or as dormant structures such as bulbs, corms, rhizomes, rootstocks or lignotubers.

The list of species includes vascular plant species, micro-organisms, fungi, cryptogamic plants and a diverse fauna, both vertebrate and invertebrate.

Umina Coastal Sandplain Woodland is a low woodland dominated by trees of eucalyptus botryoides and angophora floribunda with a diverse understorey of sclerophyllous shrubs species including banksia integrifolia, banksia serrata, monotoca elliptica, macrozamia communis, acacia ulicifolia, platysace lanceolata, acacia suaveolens and allocasuarina littoralis.

Umina Coastal Sandplain Woodland has been recorded on coastal sands on the Woy Woy Peninsula at Umina Beach and Pearl Beach.

The woodland was described in 1952 by Burges and Drover, who described eucalyptus botryoides as predominating immediately behind the beach with angophora floribunda predominating for up to one mile from the beach.

They described the soils as iron podzols and distinguished them from humus podsols with angophora costata which occurred further away from the beach.

UCSW was described as being only known from three small areas at at Umina Oval, at McEvoy Oval and at Umina High School.

There is also a tiny remnant at Little Patonga Beach.

The total area still surviving in 2002 was estimated at less than 2 ha.

Umina Coastal Sandplain Woodland has been extensively cleared for suburban development and remnants are not within conservation reserves.

Remnants are very small and threatened by mowing and slashing, weed invasion, sand extraction and modified fire regimes, according to the report.

Weed species include lantana camara, chrysanthemoides monilifera, ipomoea cairica, paspalum urvillei, bidens pilosa, pennisteum villosum, coreopsis lanceolata and ehrharta erecta.

Websites, February 17 Scientific Committee and Land and Environment Court