The North Byron Parklands site covers 256 hectares, or 660 acres.

Only 37% of the 660 acre land will ever be used for event purposes, including camping and parking. The remainder of the site will be kept for habitat purposes and will be out of bounds. The site contains a wide variety of environmental values ranging from valuable vegetation types through to highly degraded former agricultural lands. A portion of the property adjoins the Billinudgel Nature Reserve. Part of the site (approximately 35%) falls into an area which has been identified as a wildlife corridor. While considered wildlife corridor from a planning perspective, due to many years of destruction the flora has been hugely fragmented and is in need of serious regeneration and reforestation.

Likewise the ability of fauna to move between forested areas has been compromised by this fragmentation and a host of physical barriers including the Tweed Valley Way and the recently upgraded Pacific Highway.

Single ownership of the two amalgamated North Byron Parklands sites has provided a unique opportunity to help restore the wildlife corridor link between Billinudgel Nature Reserve and the Mount Warning Caldera from its existing state of long-term farming land.

An agreement with the Department of Environment and Climate Change to legally commit key strategic habitat sites to the National Parks reserve system has been reached in principle. The Minister for the Department of Environment and Climate Change has approved the transfer of strategic habitat sites to the Parks and Wildlife reserve system. We hope to enact these land transfers upon approval of the proposal currently before the Department of Planning and Infrastructure.

Further areas within North Byron Parklands continue to be carefully managed to enhance their habitat values. A key priority is to restore the native vegetation so that we can link what currently are fragmented patches of forest for the benefit of the animals and birds that live there, allowing better and safer movement to and from coastal and inland habitats.

North Byron Parklands has already planted in excess of 7,000 native trees in currently cleared parts of the wildlife corridor. We propose to plant thousands more, however much of this work is contingent upon achieving some degree of certainty regarding our proposal for a sustainable event venue.

By repairing the destroyed native vegetation, managing the weeds and feral animals and closely monitoring the biodiversity of North Byron Parklands, the benefits that the proposal will bring far outweigh its limited use as an event venue.

Our local indigenous Madhima Gulgan bush regeneration team have done an incredible job over the past 36 months planting thousands of trees and managing invasive weeds. With all the wet weather over the past few years many of these trees are now six metres high. These newly established forests are thriving and already we have noted various fauna utilising this new habitat.

In February 2009 we completed our summer Fauna survey. The survey detected 94 vertebrate species, bringing the total known vertebrate fauna species on the property to 167. Three fauna species listed as vulnerable under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 were recorded, and four exotic species were detected.

In September 2010 we had a prominent ecologist undertake a peer review of all ecological studies and assessments undertaken at the site. We decided to undertake this peer review to ensure that our methodologies used to determine fauna and flora impacts were not only current but in line with agreed best ecological practice. The review completed in December 2010 noted that the proposal involves the clearing of only a small amount of natural forest vegetation along the proposed road connecting the southern car park with the northern events area, where it will pass under Jones Road. The vegetation affected is regrowth, predominantly exotic and the extent of loss is minor. A number of recommendations were made in terms of ongoing monitoring and sampling regimes and these recommendations will be included in future fauna and flora management systems.

While we have spent hundreds of hours surveying fauna and flora and have developed a host of management plans to protect and enhance the site’s biodiversity, we continually look for inspiration from our friends and colleagues. In particular, we have learnt many lessons from our close friends at Woodfordia. They started on a journey not dissimilar to ours.

We believe North Byron Parklands will evolve into a world class event venue which sits at the forefront of the principles of sustainability.

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Contact - community@northbyronparklands.com