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CASE STUDY
Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo
Corimbia, WA
Assessing the impacts of our developments
on biodiversity and the local community is
critical to obtaining approval from regulatory
authorities and by community stakeholders.
Our newest residential community in
Western Australia, Corimbia, has been
identified as requiring, under legislation,
both onsite and offsite measures to
balance our impact on the local biodiversity.
A key piece of environmental legislation
of particular relevance to Corimbia and our
Residential business is the Environmental
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation
(EPBC) Act. The EPBC Act aims to protect
and manage nationally and internationally
important flora, fauna, ecological
communities and heritage places.
Our Corimbia project will yield
850 residential lots from its 61.8 hectares
of landholdings that we began acquiring
in 2003. When we acquired the land it
was zoned as ‘rural’ (land dominated
by horticultural activities such as market
gardens and remnant bushland) but in
2008 it was rezoned to ‘urban’.
The remnant bushland in the area is
dominated by Banksia woodland with
Jarrah and Marri eucalyptuses scattered
among heath vegetation in the upland
areas, and Banksia woodland interspersed
with Melaleuca preissiana and Banksia
ilicifolia trees in the low-lying areas.
The Banksia woodland is considered to
support suitable foraging habitat for the
EPBC Act-listed endangered Carnaby’s
Black Cockatoo. As a result, the proposed
clearing of approximately 16 hectares was
referred to the Department of Environment,
Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA)
in December 2008 to determine whether
there was a potential to impact a matter
of National Environmental Significance.
DEWHA provided its conditional approval
to the proposed clearing within the area.
Conditions included, but were not limited to:
• Limiting the clearing of remnant
vegetation to 14 hectares and retaining
2 hectares of foraging habitat as public
open space,
• Planting 372 seedlings of nominated
species as street trees in the
development area,
• If after three years from the date of
planting, a survival rate of 90 per cent
has not been achieved, all planted trees
that have not survived must be replaced
and maintained for a further two years,
• Provision of $370,000 to the Department
of Environment and Conservation (WA)
to acquire 44.6 hectares of foraging
habitat at two locations north of Perth.
We consider that the suite of
onsite and offsite offsets approved by
DEWHA are effective and appropriate
long-term mitigation measures for the loss
of 14 hectares of suitable foraging habitat
for Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo.
Threatened or endangered species or communities impacted by projects
Total 2010 Total 2009
Residential
Communities
2010
Residential
Communities
2009
Apartments
2010
Apartments
2009
Retirement
Living 2010
Retirement
Living 2009
Percentage of projects that impact threatened or
endangered species (%) 33 21 39 24 11 9 0 0
Total area of land that impacts species habitat or makes
up community (hectares) 852 1,077 850 1,075 2 2 0 0
Projects with a biodiversity plan approved by relevant
approval authority (%) 24 21 30 24 0 9 0 0
Total projects that partnered with or involved community
and non-government organisations in natural
resource management 11 7 11 7 0 0 0 0
84
Stockland Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Report June 2010