Meeting papers

Private yard extensions into public land
As part of private yard extensions into public land, native vegetation is cleared many are planted
with garden plants, and some contain small structure and retaining walls .

Replacing community bushland with a private garden is prohibited under Local Law No. 4, spreads
weeds and can make firefighting access more difficult, with level changes, access along the
boundary and into the bush blocked with debris, plantings, fencing and other infrastructure.
Reducing the functional width of often already narrow vegetated foreshores reduces the ability of
the reserve to manage extreme weather, improve water quality, reduce sediment and erosion and
act as wildlife corridors and habitat.

Vegetation damage for views
Vegetation damage for views includes pruning, cutting, breaking, pulling, poisoning and clearing
native vegetation – including trees, shrubs and ground covers - on the dune and foreshores for
views. It also affects foreshores without a shared residential boundary.

There are a few different types of clearing - all layers cleared to bare earth or mowed grass,
topping, killing or clearing the tallest vegetation where many of the largest trees are killed, or under
scrubbing, where the understory and midstory are removed.

Vegetation damage makes the remaining vegetation more vulnerable to weeds, wind and salt
damage, degrades and fragments the bushland, and can exacerbate coastal erosion risk.

Private recreation areas
Private recreation areas are cleared areas away from the boundary, often on top of the dunes or
near the back of the beach and are generally accessible from private beach accesses and private
property rather than public accesses. Some of them are planted with garden plants, turfed or
furnished with tables and chairs. Many of the issues associated with vegetation damage and yard
extensions apply.

Garden plant escapees
Most environmental weeds start out as ornamental plants, and many garden plants easily spread
in bushland by seed, suckers and runners, from gardens on private property, garden rubbish
dumps or are deliberately planted in bushland.

Garden rubbish dumping
Dumping garden rubbish in community bushland can introduce weeds and replace diverse mixes
of native plants with infestations of just a few weeds. Rubbish dumps are an attractive ignition point
for arsonists, can cause a fire to flare and block emergency and management access.


Paths and edge effects

Paths into foreshore reserves fragment the bush. Each one of these path edges has
accompanying ‘edge-effect’ area, a strip of degraded bush, which usually has more weeds and
more sunlight, wind and salt intrusion, degrading the health and diversity of the ecosystems.
Weeds are often carried along the paths by maintenance and users. Having many more paths into
the foreshore means that much more of the retained bush is this degraded edge effect area, with
reduced environmental values and increased management costs. East-west orientated paths in the
long, narrow north-south orientated foreshore reserves have a particular impact on the movement
of wildlife down the length of the reserves 24.

24
   Ballantyne. M, Gudes. O, Pickering. C.M. 2014. Recreational trails are an important cause of
fragmentation in endangered urban forests: A case-study from Australia. Landscape and Urban Planning,
130, pgs 112-124. ISSN 0169-2046

Eastern Beaches Foreshore Reserves Management Plan 2023                                         Page 66

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