By TANIA PHILLIPS
WHATEVER the future of Kingscliff’s disputed Coastal Reserve, Lot 490, a small part of it will now be preserved forever according to the group working preserve the site as a reserve.
Spokesman for the independent Save Our Lot 490 group Jerry Cornford said the seeds of the endangered ground orchid, Geodorum Densiflorum, were now on their way to the Millennium Seed Project at the Royal Kew Botanic Gardens in Sussex in the UK.
The seeds were collected by Richard Johnstone, official seed collector for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Mt Annan in Sydney which collects endangered Australian plant species on behalf of the Royal Kew Gardens.
The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, based at the Wakehurst branch of the Kew Gardens in Sussex, is the world’s largest off-site plant conservation project and has so far involved more than 80 countries.
It concentrates on global plant life faced with the threat of extinction and plants considered to be of the most use for the future. The project has already banked 10 per cent of the world’s wild plant species and aims to bank 25 per cent, or 75,000 different endangered species, by 2020.
Mr Cornford said members of the Save Our Lot 490 group discovered the Geodorum last year, shortly after the Planning Assessment Commission had approved the now defunct Leightons proposal to establish a tourist resort on the site.
He said after seeing a David Attenborough special on the Millennium Partnership shortly afterward, one of the group contacted the Royal Kew Gardens to see if they had any Geodorum seeds in their vault.
The partnership supervisor, Dr Michiel van Slageren immediately responded saying they did not have any of the orchid seeds and he was very keen to add them to the collection. He arranged for the representatives from the Mt Annan Botanic Gardens in Sydney to collect the seeds during this year’s brief window between flowering and seed pod maturity.
All seeds destined for Royal Kew are collected under sterile conditions and stored in a temperature-controlled underground vault dedicated to the Millennium Partnership.
Mr Cornford said the future of Lot 490 remains in limbo despite a petition signed by more than 8,300 people, 18.8 per cent of the Tweed’s voting population, calling for it to be retained as Crown Land and a coastal wildlife reserve, open to all the public.
