Help protect the Mt Canobolas State Conservation Area by joining the Canobolas Conservation Alliance (CCA). There is strength in numbers. The more supporters we have the more effective we will be.
Help the CCA protect Mt Canobolas from degradation by 63 km of mountain bike tracks and associated infrastructure.
Support the Canobolas Conservation Alliance by donating to help cover the cost of our activities. Campaigning is costly; there are many expenses currently being borne by a few. Your donation will help with running this website, publicity, street stalls, brochures, posters, bumper stickers, printing of submissions and perhaps legal fees.
We need more volunteers!
Campaigning is time consuming and our small band of volunteers is stretched to their limits. We have roles to suit everyone’s skill levels from writing submissions, helping with street stalls, attending Council meetings, making posters and displays, publicity and much more.
A submission lodged with the Office of Environment and Heritage nominates Mount Canobolas State Conservation Area as an Area of Outstanding Biodiversity Value under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. The data on biodiversity overwhelmingly supports that the SCA merits such recognition.
Mount Canobolas SCA is a uniquely rich biodiversity refuge that is only just beginning to be understood and which deserves the highest level of protection.
Mt Canobolas SCA is a natural laboratory providing many fertile avenues for research and education. It functions as both a refugium for declining species and an evolutionary nursery for new species. At least ten scientific institutions or organisations use the SCA and much remains to be understood – limited formal studies of biota have been undertaken.
Fifteen threatened species occur within the SCA including two locally endemic plant species, six mammals and seven birds. The SCA provides a valuable refuge for existence, feeding, breeding and surviving from habitat losses.
Vegetation on Mt Canobolas resembles that in other high altitude parts of eastern Australia, but many differences set it apart. In all, seven vegetation types occur, including up to three listed as Endangered under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. In addition, there is a unique endangered lichen community on Mt Canobolas that is endemic to the SCA.
All the plant communities on Mt Canobolas differ significantly in their composition from other similar communities and are likely to be recognised as distinct Plant Community Types in the future. This is particularly true of the heathlands.
A most interesting feature of Mt Canobolas biodiversity is the unfolding discovery of many endemic species. At least ten species are found in the wild within the SCA and immediate surrounds, and nowhere else in the world. These species depend entirely on the SCA for their survival.
The isolation of high montane / sub-alpine habitats on Mt Canobolas has captured outliers of numerous species, known from other areas of the State but finding their limits in or around the SCA. Such isolated populations evolve independently and may potentially form new species.
The summit car park will be sealed and new lookouts and a larger amenities block will be built in a $2 million upgrade of Mount Canobolas announced on Thursday. Work will start in January on the project which will take…
In last Saturday’s Central Western Daily Orange City Council announced the successful tenderer to do an environmental impact statement for a mountain bike track on Mount Canobolas. As well as producing an environmental impact statement the successful applicant is charged with…
Read More PRESS ARTICLE | Earth First – Canobolas Environmental Impact Study
Orange conservationists are preparing for a long battle to protect Mt Canobolas from mountain biking. The Canobolas Conservation Alliance, until now a loose coalition of local environment groups, formally adopted a constitution and elected office bearers on Monday. Newly elected…
Read More PRESS RELEASE | Conservationists Gear Up for Fight to Save Mt Canobolas
Environmentalists have told Orange City Council to “go back to the drawing board” over a proposal to turn Mount Canobolas into a “mountain biking mecca”. On Tuesday, Council floated spending $500,000 from the 2020-21 budget to prepare a development application…
Read More PRESS ARTICLE | Mount Canobolas mountain biking proposal rubbished by environmentalists
Four rare greenhood orchids have been rediscovered on Mount Canobolas by members of the Orange Field Naturalist and Conservation Society. After a hot and dry spring and summer, rains in autumn have spawned the Antelope Greenhood (Diplodium laxum), Scarlet…
Read More PRESS ARTICLE | Four species of autumn greenhood orchids rediscovered on Mt Canobolas
TWO years of work following the Mount Canobolas bushfire have lead to the discovery of 79 additional recorded species, from fungi to mammals. National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger Steve Woodhall said staff and volunteers from the Orange Field…
Read More MEDIA REPORT|National Parks, volunteers discover 79 species on Mount Canobolas
