Biodiversity and landscaping

Our Callaghan campus is a strategic bushland zone of about approximately 140 hectares. Twenty-five of these are dedicated ecological conservation zones and freshwater wetland areas. It is our responsibility to ensure its ecological sustainability and safeguard the ecosystems within it as well as the greater system of which it is a part.

To do this, we are committed to actively managing our campus to restore, improve and maintain this unique biodiversity. Three important ecosystems exist within it – the Coastal Foothills Spotted Gum (Ironbark Forest), the Riparian Closed Forest and freshwater wetlands – in which lives 188 native flora species, 116 bird species, 14 native mammal species, 11 frog species and 18 reptile species. A range of migratory and threatened species are also occasionally seen here, including the Powerful Owl, the Little Lorikeet, the Little Eagle, the Varied Sittella and the Grey-headed Flying Fox.

Further, the University’s Central Coast campus covers an area of approximately 113 hectares. The western half of the site contains the University’s Central Coast campus (Ourimbah). The eastern half comprises extensive areas of natural bushland and several headwater tributaries of Bangalow Creek, itself a tributary of Ourimbah Creek. The area has extensive riparian zone vegetation along Bangalow Creek which includes Narrabeen Warm Temperate Subtropical Rainforest), an Endangered Ecological Community (EEC).

More information can be found in the UON Landscape Management Implementation Plan.

Priority actions

• Continue to implement the annual Bushfire Management Plan 2016 recommendations across Callaghan and Ourimbah campuses
• Develop and implement a revised university-wide Biodiversity Management Plan by end 2020
• Integrate indigenous considerations into the University-wide Biodiversity Management Plan

Measures of success

• The implementation of a university-wide Biodiversity Management Plan by end 2020

Aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals