Biodiversity Strategy - Gosford City Council - NSW Government

2 EXISTING SITUATION
2.1 Biodiversity in Gosford
Gosford City covers an area of 1,029 square kilometres (102,900 hectares) and is located on
the east coast of Australia. The Local Government Area (LGA) extends from the Hawkesbury
River and Broken Bay in the south to Bucketty, Lisarow and Forresters Beach in the north, and
from Wisemans Ferry and the Great North Road in the west to the Tasman Sea in the east.
The location and boundary of the Gosford LGA is illustrated in Figure 2
Figure 2: Location of Gosford LGA
The Gosford LGA is situated in the Sydney Basin Bioregion which has one of the most diverse
floras in Australia (DECC 2008). This diversity results from the variations in geology,
topography and climatic conditions across the bioregion (DECC 2008). The native vegetation of
Gosford includes species whose population is restricted to the Gosford region. Endemic species
include Astrotricha crassifolia, Darwinia glaucophylla, and Grevillea shiressii (Bell 2004). Those
that have limited regional distribution include Prostanthera junonis and Prostanthera askania
which are restricted to parts of Gosford and Wyong LGAs (Bell 2004). More widespread
species include those that generally occur in the sub-tropical and tropical rainforests of New
South Wales and Queensland such as the White Beech, Gmelina leichhardtii, (RBG 2008), and
those such as Silver Banksia, Banksia marginata, that tends to occur in cooler regions such as
South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, the south coast of NSW and the tablelands and slopes of
NSW (RBG 2008). The Rose Walnut, Endiandra discolor, is a species for which the most
southerly record is in the Gosford LGA (RBG 2004).
Biodiversity Strategy Page 12