Accounting for Austin Downs

Sprawling across 167,570 hectares in the Murchison region of Western Australia, Austin Downs teems with life. But this wasn’t always the case. At the turn of the millennium, the property’s landscape, which is located 300 km inland from Geraldton, had been thoroughly degraded from decades of mismanagement and lack of vital winter rainfall from shifts in climate.

“When we got to Austin Downs, it was just a totally unresponsive system,” said Tom Jackson, the late leaseholder. “It was an absolute disaster.”

Since taking on the property in 2001, Tom and his family committed to breathing new life into the landscape. After switching from sheep to grazing cattle in much smaller herds, they managed to encourage extensive ground cover and new species growth.

Now, the landscape boasts abundant grasses, summer perennials and a huge range of Emu Bush. “We’ve had people who knew the country coming through and saying, ‘My goodness me, I didn’t believe you could get it back like this.’”

The family wanted to measure – in a precise way – what they had achieved, so they signed up with Accounting for Nature, an organisation that helps quantify landscape health.

“We wanted to get a baseline,” explains Jo Jackson King, Tom’s daughter. “Otherwise, how are we going to know if we are actually improving the country further?”

With 55% of Australia’s land managed for agriculture, we partner with farmers and landowners, such as Jo’s family, to allow our impact to flow beyond our reserves’ boundaries.

It can be a tricky, time-consuming task to survey landscape health – especially over large expanses of land. To meet this challenge, a certified drone and field-based method known as the Integrated Vegetation Condition Method (IVCM) was applied at Austin Downs. This methodology takes so much of what we have learnt managing reserves and makes it accessible to landholders in agriculture.

Dr Matt Appleby, senior ecologist for Bush Heritage, says the method combines the advantages of drone technology with the expert eye of an ecologist working on the ground. Based on its composition, the Austin Downs site was divided into four vegetation communities – mulga, greenstone, granite, and samphire/bluebush/saltbush – and a number of five-hectare plots randomly allocated across each type.

“The drone flies up and down in a systematic way to cover those five hectares,” says Matt.

Matt says the drone captures high-resolution imagery and overcomes common surveying challenges. “It can be quite tricky and time-consuming to get a very accurate figure for canopy cover and shrub cover using traditional, ground-based methods,” he says.

“So, a drone gives us high-quality imagery we wouldn’t usually have available. We then use algorithms we’ve developed to produce an accurate measurement of the crown cover, which gives you a great figure for the five-hectare plot.” In tandem, an ecologist goes out on the ground to identify species at a site within the five hectares.

Jo says this process opened her eyes to just how biodiverse the landscape has become. She went with Fiamma Riviera and Angela Recalde-Salas, ecologists for Bush Heritage, who helped identify an enormous range of species. “It was like having your brain exploded,” says Jo of the fieldwork. “There is just so much more there than you thought.”

Matt describes the IVCM method as scientifically rigorous, which is certified by Accounting for Nature. The method was used to develop an Environmental Account (AU00067) measuring native vegetation under the Accounting for Nature® Framework, which was assessed by an independent Accounting for Nature® Accredited Auditor – RSM Australia – before being certified. The Asset Account for Austin Downs achieved an Econd® (Environmental Condition Index) score of 76.4 out of a possible 100.

There’s still plenty to be done at the property. As the family continues to care for the land, this baseline account will prove useful to help show what can be accomplished with a long-term, ambitious commitment to land restoration.

In loving memory of Tom Jackson, whose dedication to caring for the land at Austin Downs will leave a lasting legacy. This work was funded by the landholder.