Vegetation in the catchment area consists of three endangered ecological species, including coastal saltmarsh, Cooks River Castlereagh Ironbark Forest, and Shale / Sandstone Transition Forest. Vegetation varies substantially throughout the catchment area and includes freshwater environments, estuarine environments, mangroves and saltmarshes, riparian and terrestrial environments, which provide important habitat for native fauna.[2]
Salt Pan Creek was named by early colonial settlers, who took salt from the swampland by evaporating the salt water.[1]
From as early as 1809, the land surrounding Salt Pan Creek was the site of uprising by Indigenous Australians against colonial settlement. Tedbury, the son of Pemulwuy, an Aboriginal elder, was involved in a skirmish that saw Frederick Meredith, a European settler, injured with a spear and forced to abandon his farm. Meredith and another settler were seeking to clear and cultivate land surrounding the creek that may have been an important food source for Aboriginal people.[4]
In the 1920s, the Aboriginal Anderson and Rowley families bought land along the creek that was not farmed as it was low-lying, and had large amounts of sandstone and forest. The surrounding land was similar to these two blocks, and became camps for Aboriginal people not wanting to live on Aboriginal reserves, which were controlled by the Aborigines Welfare Board. They lived by working for a variety of jobs for cash, and by using their knowledge of the flora and fauna of the area. Some sold wildflowers door-to-door; others collected the bright red gum tips and Christmas bush and sold them at the Friday night markets. They were all able to gather oysters, prawns and river fish, and there were swamp wallabies and other game which could be hunted for food. The land remained as open camping grounds for Aboriginal people until the 1930s.[3]
Between 1926 and 1935, lands surrounding the creek became a focal point for Indigenous rights, as they set up squatter camps that consisted of refugee families whose traditional lands had been taken by settlers, and also those seeking to escape the Aboriginal Protection Board.[4] The land was important because it was freehold, and therefore not under any government or missionary control, and politics was a major source of conversation at the camp.[3]
