2024 Cumberland Plain Research Funding Grant Recipient

Lead investigator: Associate Professor Scott Mooney (UNSW)

Co-Investigators: Peter Ridgeway (Greater Sydney Local Land Services)

Project Summary: This project addresses several important questions about the characterisation of the dominant pre-clearance vegetation communities of the Cumberland Plain (Cumberland Plain Shale Plains and associated vegetation communities e.g. River Flat Forest, here collectively CPW).

We will develop (modern) pollen-vegetation relationships in these vegetation communities and use the (fossil) pollen and charcoal in (radiocarbon-dated) pre-European sediments to reconstruct the pre-clearance structure of these critically endangered vegetation communities. We particularly aim to address how grassy were these ‘grassy woodlands’ and if fire was involved in structural dynamics.

The research informs the restoration of the vegetation and supports connection of Indigenous people to this landscape.