NEW State and Commonwealth CEEC Listings

White Box – Yellow Box – Blakely’s Red Gum Grassy Woodland and Derived Native Grassland in the NSW North Coast, New England Tableland, Nandewar, Brigalow Belt South, Sydney Basin, South Eastern Highlands, NSW South Western Slopes, South East Corner and Riverina Bioregions (commonly referred to as Box-Gum Woodland) had its conservation status increased to Critically Endangered Ecological Community (CEEC) on July 17, 2020.

The Plant Community Types (PCT) are in the Upper Hunter and Brigalow Belt regions and include PCT 382, 483, 484, 622, 166, 1691, 1695 and 1698.  This increase in status level, will not affect the credit yield per hectare, but over time may have the effect of increasing the credit price.

The Box Gum Grassy Woodland was previously listed as an Endangered Ecological Community in NSW and a CEECunder the Australian Government’s Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

Box Gum Grassy Woodlands are found on relatively fertile soils of the lower slopes on the tablelands and western slopes of NSW, grass and herbaceous species generally characterise the ground layer. Shrubs are generally sparse or absent. This community is also very important to the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater with as little as only 400 mature birds left in the wild.

Box Gum Grassy Woodlands have been drastically reduced in area and highly fragmented clearance due to disturbances such as cropping, pasture improvement, heavy-grazing by domestic stock urban development, mining and transport infrastructure leaving them severely depleted and fragmented.

Some remnants of these communities survive with many of the trees partly of wholly removed by post-European settlement activities, and conversely, other remnants of these communities survive with the tree species largely intact but ground layers degraded to varying degrees through grazing or pasture modification.