The ACT Government has agreed with several conservation groups that Mulligan’s Flat in Gungahlin will be preserved as a nature reserve.
On original plans, much of the area was to be sub-divided for housing.
The Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, acknowledged yesterday ÿ(tuejul28)@ that a significant amount of revenue would be forgone, but the significance of the site.
A proposal submitted by the Conservation Council of the South-East Region and six other conservation groups said that six square kilometres should be made a nature reserve. Mr Wood said he would take a generous view of those boundaries. He hoped to fix them within weeks.
The conservation proposal called for a departure from previous planning practice in Canberra when only the hilly areas had been preserved.
It was a rare piece of lowland temperate woodland and grassland, nearly all of which in this region had been degraded through agriculture and development.
It had populations of at least 17 mammals, including the red-necked and swamp wallabies, more than 120 species of bird, 14 species of reptiles and many frog varieties, including the rare spotted burrowing frog. Some of these were rare or endangered in the ACT. It also had the Gungahlin quartz ridge.
The proposal called for enough continuous bushland to preserve the species.