The East Gippsland Landcare Network in partnership with Trust for Nature have secured a Threatened Species Network grant for $10,000 from the World Wide Fund for Nature to protect a remnant community of nationally endangered Limestone Blue Wattles on the limestone cliffs in Wy Yung.


The endangered wattles are on the property of Belinda and
Greg Rowe, who approached Landcare earlier this year for assistance with some
tree planting along their creek. On a visit to the property Landcare Project
Officer Leah Newey spotted the unusual looking wattles on the cliffs and took a
sample back to the office to correctly identify them. 
 Bill Peel, a botanist at the East
Gippsland Catchment Management Authority who confirmed that the species are the
Limestone Blue Wattle -Acacia carelessness
 Belinda
and Greg when made aware that their site contained not only an endangered plant
species but also an endangered vegetation community ‘Limestone Pomederris
Shrubland’ decided to extent their fencing to protect the area from grazing and
placed a conservation covenant on the vegetation. The area was fenced with assistance
from Landcare and Trust for Nature.
 The
wattle species also known by locals as the ‘Buchan blue wattle’ is endemic to
East Gippsland in Victoria, where there are only 1700 plants left in 15 wild
populations. Limestone Blue Wattle (Acacia
carelessness) and Limestone Pomederris Shrubland are both listed under the
State Flora Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and
the Commonwealth Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Major threats to populations
include weed invasion, grazing and lack of regeneration, road-widening and
altered fire regimes. There is only 33ha of this vegetation left and only 3ha
is currently in conservation reserves. This project will put another 4ha under
conservation and will revegetate another 2 ha.
The funding from the Threatened Species Network will go
towards controlling and eradicating weeds, vegetation survey of the site, revegetation
of the degraded areas including planting more Limestone Blue wattles and community
education.