Tuesday, 28 May 2024

North-Eastern Metropolitan Region

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:46): (876) My question is to the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and it relates to the North East Link toll road and its disastrous environmental impact on the Koonung Creek wetlands and its diverse ecosystem. Mycelium is a long, branching root-like structure of a fungus. Its tiny threads seek nutrients needed for the fungal reproductive organ, the mushroom, to penetrate the surface of the soil and release its spores. Mycelium also wraps around and bores into the roots of trees, which feed carbon to the fungi in the form of sugar. In return not only does the mycelium provide trees and other plants with nitrogen, phosphorus and other essential minerals, but its network structure also enables trees to transfer water, nutrients and electrochemical messages to kin and to cousins alike. This symbiotic relationship is known as the mycorrhizal network, and it is crucial to a healthy, diverse ecosystem. Can you provide any evidence of having considered the project’s impact on the mycorrhizal network currently being destroyed at the Koonung Creek wetlands?