The Golden Plains Shire’s road mapping project has highlight the Shelford-Mount Mercer Road as one of Australia’s best remaining examples of native grassland.
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The project shows the considerable stretch of road contains the largest recorded populations of Spiny Rice Flower, a federally protected species and is a site of a near-threatened marsupial, the fat-tailed dunnart.
The project commenced in 2014 and was only recently completed, with 47,000 flora and fauna records gathered and more than 27,000 photos taken of points of interest.
The project also showed that approximately half of the roadsides mapped were considered to contain very high to high biodiversity and conservation value.
In total, both sides of 688 roads were mapped for biodiversity significance, totaling 3,443 km of surveyed roadside.
Significant roads mapped near Ballarat alongside the Shelford-Mount Mercer Road include Jollys Hill Road and Post Office and Sobeys Road near Ross Creek, Smythesdale’s Sebastopol-Smythesdale Road, Scarsdale’s Browns Road and Kitty’s Lead Road and Parkinsons Road near Napoleons.
Council will conduct internal awareness raising workshops to educate staff on the importance of native vegetation on roadsides.