Newington Nature Reserve Plan of Management

Prior to its gazettal, the reserve was part of a larger area of the Newington Royal Australian Navy Armament Depot and managed by the Commonwealth Department of Defence. As a result, public access to the reserve has been restricted for over a hundred years.

The 47 hectare reserve is in two disparate parts – a 13 hectare remnant woodland of Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest, and a 34 hectare highly engineered estuarine wetland system. These two parts form an estuarine zonal succession of Cumberland Plain Woodland, Allocasuarina, Saltmarsh and Mangroves.

The reserve provides habitat for many flora and fauna species, including migratory birds protected under international agreements, a regionally important breeding site for many native parrot species, saltmarsh communities containing large areas of Wilsonia backhousei, classified as vulnerable, and Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest, classified as endangered. Tidal flushing was restored to the wetland in 2000, and sediment, vegetation and fauna are changing in response to the new hydrological regime.