Gondwana Link

Native habitat across the South-West has been heavily fragmented and Gondwana Link aims to reconnect the larger fragments all the way from the wet forests of the south to the semi-arid woodlands near Kalgoorlie. Gondwana Link will restore a great arc of bushland and protected areas that will once again enable the free movement of species.

So far, Bush Heritage, our supporters and our partners have purchased four properties and established some of the most significant biodiversity regeneration work yet seen in Australia. The latest purchase, the 923 hectare Yarrabee Wesfarmers Reserve, abuts the Stirling Range National Park, protects a significant area of Banksia woodland and is the site of the most extensive ecological restoration work yet attempted in Australia. The property is jointly owned by Bush Heritage and Greening Australia (WA).

Gondwana Link is a complex project but it arises from a relatively straightforward proposition: to exponentially improve the health of existing native vegetation by building on and reconnecting what remains.

Why? Well, the problems of fragmentation are clear. By breaking up the bush into small areas, and creating large spaces between those remnants, plants and animals that were once able to ‘move’ to escape deteriorating conditions are now effectively ‘stuck’.

While it is true that plant communities do not move across a landscape very quickly – and individual plants not at all – they do ‘move’ over millennia. The impacts of habitat fragmentation on plant communities can therefore take time to see. The impacts on animals and the environment are generally more immediate. Animals lose their shelter and food. Soils and salt that have been held in place by plants move with somewhat more alacrity once the plants are gone. Overall, the result is an environment that is no longer able to work as it should, requiring constant intervention and action.

So, that is why the task is relatively straightforward – ‘unfragment’ the landscape, stick it back together, and get out of the way before you get run over by some migrating eucalypts.

How? A bit at a time. Start small. Protect a bit of land here and a bit of land there until you have two or three properties close together in a cluster. Create more clusters and then join up the clusters. In other words, gradually buy the bush that remains and replant the missing bits, re-establishing as much bush as you can. Species are then free to move again.

At a local level this process creates visible changes immediately. It will take many years for the changes to be seen over the entire project area. However, the process is under way.

The first three properties purchased, Chereninup and the two that were combined to make Monjebup Reserve, have built a cluster with Greening Australia WA’s Nowanup Reserve and the public Corackerup Nature Reserve. Yarrabee, the latest purchase, creates a cluster with the Stirling Range National Park. These two clusters are developing and will soon be linked. And this is where our various project partners are essential!

Bush Heritage is buying and managing the large areas of relatively intact bush, the building blocks of Gondwana Link. Greening Australia WA is bringing its experience to revegetating the cleared areas and linking the building blocks. Together we are building clusters. View a video here.

The Wilderness Society is assisting by increasing our understanding of environmental processes on different scales, from the local to the regional and national scales. It has funded a scientist who has helped to create the overall plan for Gondwana Link.

Community groups such as the Fitzgerald Biosphere Group and Friends of the Fitzgerald provide the essential connection between our activities and those of the regional communities and towns of which we are becoming a part.

And the Noongar people, the Traditional Owners of the region, are working to ensure that their cultural connection is woven into the project.

So far, so good! Together, Bush Heritage and its supporters, and Greening Australia WA, have purchased 5353 hectares, and by the end of this planting season will have regenerated 1158 hectares of this overall area. Wildlife species protected include the rare and endangered western whipbird, malleefowl, Carnaby's cockatoo and red-tailed phascogale. A number of plant species with very limited ranges have already been protected, such as the Corackerup moort, dwarf spider orchid, Monjebup wattle and Barren’s wedding bush.