Canberra's once widespread woodlands are beginning to make a comeback after being driven towards destruction by European settlement. But they may not be out of the woods yet.
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Woodlands once covered most of Canberra's lower hill slopes and provided homes for native animals like kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas and a diverse array of birds, reptiles and insects. Europeans brought livestock to Canberra and many of these woodlands were cleared for settlements and then more recently for suburbs.
Environment Minister Simon Corbell announced on Wednesday that a ''major woodland restoration is occurring'' thanks to conservation projects such as volunteer restoration and protection from urban development.
Mr Corbell said that ''since 2004, about 2200 hectares of woodlands have been added to the reserve network or have been proposed as reserves''.
However, in that same period, 192 hectares of critically endangered yellow box red gum woodlands have been destroyed for urban development, with a further 126 hectares planned for removal in North Gungahlin, according to a government study.
ACT Conservation Council executive director Clare Henderson welcomed the addition of the woodlands to the territory's reserve system but pointed out that ''these woodlands already existed''.
"It is great they will be protected by being in the reserve system … however we have lost over 300 hectares of these [areas] to urban development in the ACT over the last 10 years,'' Ms Henderson said.
The patches of yellow box red gum woodlands in the ACT were ''extremely significant'' in terms of size, quality and diversity, she said.
These woodland ecosystems are defined by trees of 10 to 30 metres in height, usually eucalyptus in Canberra, which form wide but visibly separate canopies above an understorey of shrubs, herbs and grasses.
Mr Corbell said woodland restoration program would ''consolidate and connect 60,000 hectares of box gum grassy woodland landscape, including the creation of corridors of native vegetation''.
