Munyaroo Conservation Park is a protected area in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

in the gazetted locality of Midgee located on the east coast of the

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named af ...

about south south-west of

Whyalla Whyalla was founded as "Hummocks Hill", and was known by that name until 1916. It is the fourth most populous city in the Australian state of South Australia after Adelaide, Mount Gambier and Gawler and along with Port Pirie and Port Augusta i ...

and east north-east of Cowell. The conservation park consists of three separate blocks of land - two adjoin the coastline with Spencer Gulf respectively immediately south of Muminnie Beach and Plank Point and the third being located to the west on the east side of the

Lincoln Highway The Lincoln Highway is the first transcontinental highway in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913 ...

. The conservation park was proclaimed under the ''

National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 Protected areas of South Australia consists of protected areas located within South Australia and its immediate onshore waters and which are managed by South Australian Government agencies. As of March 2018, South Australia contains 359 sepa ...

'' on 13 October 1977. On 20 August 2009, the Munyaroo Conservation Reserve which have been dedicated as a

conservation reserve A conservation reserve is a protected area set aside for conservation purposes. Conservation reserves by country Australia In South Australia, a conservation reserve is a type of protected area declared under the ''Crown Land Management Act 2009 ...

on 11 November 1993 under the state's ''Crown Lands Act 1929'' was added to the conservation park. The conservation park was constituted to permit access under the state's ''Mining Act 1971'' to its west and south portions only. The land protected by the conservation park was considered in 2014 by its managing authority to be significant for the following reasons:

Munyaroo Conservation Park (20 139 ha) consists of three separate areas in close proximity to each other on the Spencer Gulf coastline. They provide an important habitat link between the coastal vegetation and inland mallee of the peninsula. The two large coastal blocks include low impact sandy beaches with an intertidal zone of
mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...
and
samphire Samphire is a name given to a number of succulent salt-tolerant plants ( halophytes) that tend to be associated with water bodies. *Rock samphire, ''Crithmum maritimum'' is a coastal species with white flowers that grows in Ireland, the Uni ...
communities. These communities provide habitat for shorebirds such as
plover Plovers ( , ) are a widely distributed group of wading birds belonging to the subfamily Charadriinae. Description There are about 66 species in the subfamily, most of them called "plover" or "dotterel". The closely related lapwing subf ...
s,
tern Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists of e ...
s and the
Sooty Oystercatcher The sooty oystercatcher (''Haematopus fuliginosus'') is a species of oystercatcher. It is a wading bird endemic to Australia and commonly found on its coastline. It prefers rocky coastlines, but will occasionally live in estuaries. All of its fea ...
which is listed as rare under the ''
National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 Protected areas of South Australia consists of protected areas located within South Australia and its immediate onshore waters and which are managed by South Australian Government agencies. As of March 2018, South Australia contains 359 sepa ...
''. Behind the coastal dune system are low open
woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (se ...
s of Western Myall and False Sandalwood, with a Bluebush and Bladder Saltbush understorey. The mallee and saltbush associations contain populations of the Yellow Swainson-pea which is listed as vulnerable under the ''National Parks and Wildlife Act'' and the Dwarf Four-toed Slider which is listed as rare under the act.

The conservation park is classified as an IUCN Category VI protected area.

References

External links

Munyaroo Conservation Park webpage on protected planet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Munyaroo Conservation Park Conservation parks of South Australia Protected areas established in 1977 1977 establishments in Australia Eyre Peninsula Spencer Gulf