A certified path to restoration

Biodiversity certification and carbon sequestration work together in south-west Western Australia to deliver strong outcomes for nature.

Despite being one of the most biodiverse places in Australia, from above, south-west Western Australia appears mostly a landscape of furrowed paddocks. The remnant vegetation of the Stirling Range and Fitzgerald River national parks stands out, each providing vital habitat for local wildlife. Halfway between them and 400 km from Perth is Ediegarrup Reserve. Located on the traditional lands of the Goreng Noongar people, it is another patch on its way to becoming a thriving refuge.

“It’s a work in progress,” says Heather Barnes, Healthy Landscapes Manager Southwest. But if you get down on your hands and knees on the reserve, you can spy the first shoots of native vegetation pushing through the earth. These are the tiny heralds of a larger plan for connectivity through the region and the first indicators of restoration impact.

Ediegarrup is one of seven reserves in the area managed by Bush Heritage. Our vision is to restore and nurture a biodiversity corridor between the two national parks, giving wildlife the freedom to roam as they did prior to the region’s intensive land clearing for agriculture. Over three years, we’ve planted 480 kg of seed and 154,000 seedlings, representing 135 local native species across over 550 hectares of previously cleared farmland at Ediegarrup.

At Bush Heritage, a critical part of our conservation planning and management is actively measuring the health of our landscapes and projects’ progress. The restoration at Ediegarrup is particularly unique as an assessment of the reserve’s native vegetation has been independently audited and certified under the Accounting for Nature® Framework. It’s the first time a full environmental accounting practice has been implemented and certified on a Bush Heritage reserve.

When we completed baseline monitoring on-site in 2023, the vegetation condition score – known as an Econd® – was 45.1/100, which included the planted, cleared and remnant vegetation areas. Ediegarrup’s next assessment is due in 2026, and Helen is confident that, given our efforts to date, it will already show improvement.

After the baseline assessments were completed, direct seeding began with an ambitious three-year planting schedule. We developed the species lists based on nearby remnant vegetation, with local seed collectors and Nowanup rangers helping to source seeds from parcels of undisturbed bush.

Some seeds are sown directly, while other species in need of more care are first grown as tubestock. “Some species don’t do well with direct seeding. Then there are those that require special treatment, or our rarest species where we only have a handful of seeds,” says Heather.

The project is a collaborative effort; we’ve worked closely with partners at Greening Australia, Nowanup Rangers and Badgebup’s Ngoolyark Rangers. These relationships and connections remain as important as the vision of creating a biodiversity corridor in the south-west.

In partnership with Greening Australia and Canopy, Bush Heritage has also recently reached another exciting milestone at Ediegarrup. We generated our first Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) under the Clean Energy Regulator’s Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) Scheme.

Nature finance allows us to fund restoration work and provides an additional income stream to scale the work supported by our generous donors. “Our approach is a model to show how carbon projects can achieve outcomes for both the climate and nature,” explains Helen.

In 2024, our supporters helped us purchase and begin managing the nearby Dodgey Downs Reserve. We’ve already begun to assess its baseline condition in preparation for seeding next year and will apply lessons learnt from Ediegarrup’s restoration. “Working together is always better than working alone,” says Heather. “We’re constantly learning and, where appropriate, applying that knowledge to the other landscapes we manage to achieve more impact.” •